A 19-year-old woman has been denied the chance to watch her father be executed after a federal judge ruled she is too young.
Kevin Johnson is set to be executed via lethal injection on November 27 for killing a Missouri police officer in 2005.
Although she was just two when Johnson was locked up, daughter Khorry Ramey built a relationship with her dad over the years.
She had hoped to attend the execution and applied to a federal court in Kansas to override a Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution.
Filing an emergency motion with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, they argued the age requirement served no safety purpose and violates Ramey’s constitutional rights.
U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes denied the motion ruling late Friday that Ramey’s constitutional rights would not be violated by the law.
Mr Johnson is set to be executed for kiling Kirkwood police officer William McEntee. Johnson was 19 at the time, the same age his daughter is now.
“I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to be with my dad in his last moments,” Ms Ramey said in a statement. “My dad is the most important person in my life. He has been there for me my whole life, even though he’s been incarcerated.”
The judge acknowledged the law would cause emotional harm for Ms Ramey, who also witnessed her mum being murdered, but ruled it did not violate her rights.
Police officer William McEntee, a husband and father-of-three, was dispatched to Johnson's home on July 5, 2005 to serve a warrant for his arrest after breaching his probation.
When Johnson saw the police arrive he went to his brother's room to wake up the 12-year-old who fled to his nan's house next door.
As he ran the 12-year-old Joseph Long, who had a congenital heart defect, suffered a seizure and tragically died in hospital just hours later.
Later than evening when talking with friends, Johnson blamed the police for his brother's death saying: "They wasn't trying to help him, that he was too busy looking for me.”
McEntee was later attending another incident in the neighbourhood when Johnson approached his car and opened fire saying: “You killed my brother”.
The victim was struck five times and another bystander hit in the leg. Badly injured McEntee got out the police car before Johnson returned and shot him twice in the head, killing him.
Johnson's lawyers have also filed appeals hoping to stop the execution.
They don’t challenge his guilt but claim racism played a role in the decision to seek the death penalty, and in the jury’s decision to sentence him to die. Johnson is Black and McEntee was white.
Other reasons cited by lawyer's seeking clemency is Johnson's history of mental illness and his young age at the time of the crime.
Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.
In a court filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office stated there were no grounds for court intervention.
“The surviving victims of Johnson’s crimes have waited long enough for justice, and every day longer that they must wait is a day they are denied the chance to finally make peace with their loss,” the state petition stated.
