Alyssa O’Brien, a mitigation specialist at the federal defender office in the Western District of Missouri, speaks on Oct. 7 at the University of Missouri about Lance Shockley, pictured in the background. (Steph Quinn/Missouri Independent.)
A man who has insisted upon his innocence in the 2005 murder of a Missouri highway patrolman is scheduled to be executed next week, even though the jury that convicted him could not reach agreement on his death sentence.
In most states, a deadlocked jury would have resulted in a life sentence. But Missouri is one of two states, along with Indiana, that allow judges to unilaterally choose the death penalty when a jury is split on how to sentence a defendant for a capital offense.
Lance Shockley was issued a warrant of execution in June after exhausting state and federal processes to appeal his conviction of the murder of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr.
Graham was found shot dead in the driveway of his home in Carter County in March 2005. He had been investigating Shockley’s role in a fatal 2004 drunk driving accident, which prosecutors said gave Shockley a motive to kill him.
Shockley’s defense team argued on appeal that his trial was flawed by a lack of physical evidence or eyewitnesses placing him on Graham’s property on the day of the murder, and that Shockley was entitled to DNA testing of items from the scene of the crime that could exonerate him.
With a clemency petition pending in Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office, Shockley’s case has stirred scrutiny of the state’s unusual judicial sentencing law.
Anti-death penalty activists protested at the Missouri Capitol Tuesday, with some carrying signs asking, “What if we got it wrong?”
Group of Republican lawmakers raise concerns about Missouri death penalty
At a presentation at the University of Missouri Law School later that evening, Shockley’s lead attorney, assistant federal public defender Jeremy Weis, said Missouri law puts circuit court judges — who in most jurisdictions are elected, not appointed — under “a lot of pressure” to choose the death penalty.
“Nobody ever wins an election for county judge or circuit judge by arguing that, ‘I’m going to be fair with defendants,” Weis said in an interview Thursday.
Every year since 2018, Missouri lawmakers have considered at least one bill to repeal the law.
State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, sponsored bills in 2023, 2024 and 2025 that would have required a sentence of life imprisonment without parole in cases with deadlocked juries. This year, the bill stalled when it reached the full Senate, but she said she plans to sponsor the measure again in 2026.
“No matter what anybody’s individual belief system is about the death penalty, I think we can all agree that it should be consistently applied,” Coleman said in an interview Thursday. “And when you have one person making a decision on behalf of the state about the life and death of a citizen, I think it’s really inappropriate.”
But bills like Coleman’s have faced opposition from lawmakers who argue that current state law allows judges to ensure victims see justice for serious crimes.
Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, a Parkville Republican, opposed Coleman’s bill when it came up for debate in March.
“A vote in favor of this legislation as it sits right now,” he said at the time, “is to protect some of the most heinous murderers in the state of Missouri.”
Members of Shockley’s legal team argued that, aside from the possibility of his wrongful conviction, his work as a mentor for fellow inmates over more than a decade Potosi Correctional Center should qualify him to continue that role while incarcerated.
Alyssa O’Brien, a mitigation specialist on Shockley’s legal team, said Tuesday that Shockley oversees Christian programming at Potosi and volunteers in the section of the prison housing inmates with developmental disabilities, counseling and praying with them.
Shockley was selected for the prison’s Institutional Peer Support program, O’Brien said, which allows him to respond to correctional officers’ calls and help de-escalate when inmates are in crisis.
“Lance is looking out for the guys in the prison, but he is also helping the officers, because he’s helping maintain safety and facilitate these relationships between everybody,” O’Brien said.
Heidi Moore, executive director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, said that when she worked as an institutional parole officer stationed in Potosi in the early 2000s, the presence of inmates trusted by staff and their peers “mean[t] wonders.”
“When you get some of the younger guys that don’t know how to act,” Moore said,“they will listen to someone under a death sentence.”
Weis said Thursday that he hadn’t heard from the governor’s office about Shockley’s clemency petition, but that he remains hopeful. This would be the first execution in Missouri since Kehoe took office in January. Under Kehoe’s predecessor, the state conducted 12 executions in six years.
“If we’re just going to say that we’re not going to give clemency to anybody who’s on death row because of the circumstances of the crime,” Weis said, “then you’re not giving anybody incentives to be good citizens, right? Might as well act out. What’s the point?”
This story was updated at 10:11 a.m. to correct the name of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.
This post was originally authored and published by Steph Quinn from Missouri Independent via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
