American executed in Missouri after legal marathon

The state of Missouri on Tuesday (May 3) executed a man who had been sentenced to death three times for a double murder committed more than a quarter century ago.

Carman Deck, 56, received a lethal injection at 6:10 p.m. (1110 GMT) at Bonne Terre Penitentiary in the central United States, the state prison service said.

To discover

• LIVE - War in Ukraine: follow the evolution of the conflict minute by minute

• YOUR COMMUNE - The results of the second round of the presidential election in your area

Read alsoDeath penalty: the long road to abolition

On Monday, Missouri Governor Mike Parson refused to grant him clemency and commute his sentence to life imprisonment, as demanded by local activists.

,” commented the governor in a press release after the execution, saying he was thinking of the relatives of the

.

The United States Supreme Court also rejected a final appeal by his lawyers on Monday, making him the 5th convict executed in the United States since January 1.

In 1996, Carman Deck killed an elderly couple, James and Zelma Long, in suburban St. Louis.

He has always admitted his responsibility for the crime.

According to the

newspaper , whose editorial writers argued for his sentence to be commuted, the Missouri Supreme Court in 2002 overturned the verdict of an initial trial, on the grounds that his attorneys had improperly defended him.

In particular, they had failed to expose his difficult childhood in foster families.

Read alsoIn California, the last days in San Quentin of death row inmates

The Supreme Court of the United States had invalidated in 2005 a second trial, where he had been presented with restraints on the feet, wrists and abdomen likely to influence the perception of jurors.

In 2008, he received the death penalty in a third trial, but the sentence was overturned in 2017 by a federal judge, on the grounds that all available evidence had not been presented to jurors.

An appeals court, however, restored the ruling in 2020, a ruling later upheld by the state Supreme Court.