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| JOSEPH PAUL FRANKLIN |
Franklin, 63, was put to death for the 1977 sniper killing of Gerald Gordon at a Richmond Heights synagogue. His fate was sealed when the U.S. Supreme Court, at about 5:20 a.m. Wednesday, upheld a federal appeals court decisions overturning stays granted Tuesday by federal judges in Jefferson City and St. Louis.
Mike O’Connell, of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the execution got the final OK from Gov. Jay Nixon at 6:05 a.m. By this time, Franklin was already strapped to a table in the state’s death chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, ready for the injection. He received a lethal injection at 6:07 a.m., and his death was confirmed at 6:17 a.m.
The execution was the first in Missouri using a single drug, pentobarbital. Three media witnesses said Franklin did not seem to express pain. He did not make any final written statement and did not speak a word in the death chamber. After the injection, he blinked a few times, breathed heavily a few times, and swallowed hard, the witnesses said. The heaving of his chest slowed, and finally stopped, they said.
Jessica Machetta, managing editor of Missourinet, who witnessed the execution, said he did not seem to take a breath after 6:10 a.m.
Nixon said in a statement: “The cowardly and calculated shootings outside a St. Louis-area synagogue were part of Joseph Paul Franklin’s long record of murders and other acts of extreme violence across the country, fueled by religious and racial hate.” He asked that Gordon be remembered and that Franklin’s victims and their families remain in the thoughts and prayers of Missourians.
Judges in two U.S. court districts had ordered stays of execution for Franklin on Tuesday. But Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster’s office successfully appealed both of the orders to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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