The state of Missouri on Tuesday executed Brian Dorsey for the 2006 murders of his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Benjamin Bonnie, after an effort to have his life spared failed in recent days.
Dorsey’s time of death was recorded as 6:11 p.m, the Missouri Department of Corrections said in a news release. The method of execution was lethal injection, Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the department, said at a news conference, adding it “went smoothly, no problems.”
The execution of Dorsey, 52, occurred hours after the US Supreme Court declined to intervene and about a day after Missouri’s Republican governor denied clemency, rejecting the inmate’s petition – backed by more than 70 correctional officers and others – for a commutation of his sentence to life in prison.
Dorsey and his attorneys cited his remorse, his rehabilitation while behind bars and his representation at trial by attorneys who allegedly had a “financial conflict of interest” as reasons he should not be put to death. But those arguments were insufficient to convince Gov. Mike Parson, who said in a statement carrying out Dorsey’s sentence “would deliver justice and provide closure.”
He also had a well-documented history of mental illness, which would have been a defense to the death penalty, and an exemplary record as an inmate. More than 70 correctional officers signed the petition begging for him not to be murdered by the state.
And murder is the intentional killing of a human being. The fact that someone signs a piece of paper that says it’s okay doesn’t change the nature of the act.
I looked it up and every definition website includes that it has to be illegal to be considered murder. By your definition every instance of self-defense is murder.
No it isn’t. Murder is illegal killing of someone else. No reasonable person is going to call you a murderer if you kill someone who is trying to kill you and you reasonably believe you have no other choice.
You’re thinking of the term homicide, which isn’t always murder.