Missouri Supreme Court declines to halt execution of man who killed couple in 2006

The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to halt the execution of Brian Dorsey, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection next month for killing his cousin and her husband 18 years ago.

Judge W. Brent Powell wrote in the unanimous decision that Dorsey "has not demonstrated he is actually innocent" of the first-degree murder convictions that brought him to death row, despite previously pleading guilty to those charges and failing to deny that he committed the crimes. Powell rejected the prisoner's suggestion in his recent petitions that "he was incapable of deliberation" at the time the murders were carried out "due to drug-induced psychosis," and also wrote that the state Supreme Court previously turned aside Dorsey's claim that his trial lawyer was ineffective, and he is barred from raising that claim again.

Dorsey had tried to argue his innocence on the grounds that he "lacked the mental state to commit the offense" at the time of the killing, which would call into question the premeditation and willfulness that are prerequisites for a first-degree murder conviction.