Lawyers for a death row inmate in Missouri have requested to have his execution sentence blocked, claiming he is rehabilitated.
Brian Dorsey's execution is scheduled for tomorrow (9 April), but his lawyers have pleaded with the US supreme court the stop it from going ahead, following a petition for clemency from over 70 correctional officers.
The petition asks the court to save Brian's life and instead hand him a life-without-parole sentence, claiming he is fully rehabilitated.
Brian, 52, was sentenced to death in 2008 after being convicted of first degree murder after shooting his cousin and her husband in their home in December 2006.
His lawyers say Brian murdered Sarah and Benjamin while experiencing psychosis induced by crack cocaine and alcohol, which he used to treat chronic depression and that he has no memory of committing the crime.
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An extraordinary effort has been made to try and spare Brian's life, with
his attorneys having argued that the system that was in place at the time of his conviction meant he was not adequately represented in the capital case.
Brian's attorneys said: “When a death-sentenced person has demonstrated that he has been rehabilitated, does the eighth amendment prohibit his execution because the penological goals of the death penalty would not be met by executing that person?”
The petition goes to explain that Brian is 'the rare case where a person facing an imminent execution unquestionably is fully rehabilitated', with his attorney's arguing going ahead would violate the eighth amendment constitutional ban against punishments which serve no deterrent or rehabilitation purpose.
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Retired Missouri supreme court judge Michael Wolff wrote in the Missouri Times in March that he wished he'd had more information prior to denying the prisoner's petition back in 2009.
He wrote: “In the case of Brian Dorsey, I now believe this is the rare case where we got it wrong. I am so convinced of our error that I have asked Governor Parson to grant clemency to Mr Dorsey.”
A recent letter penned by Timothy Lancaster, a former officer at Potosi - the prison Brian is in - claimed that 'executing Brian Dorsey would be a pointless cruelty'.
Missouri puts more people to death than most of the states in the US, having executed 97 people since 1976.
Danni King