Missouri executes man convicted of murder despite calls to examine innocence claim

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article242836221.html

Missouri on Tuesday executed Walter Barton for the killing of an elderly woman in 1991, despite mounting calls to investigate his claim of innocence.

(snip)

In his final statement released prior to his execution, Barton said: “I, Walter ‘Arkie’ Barton, am innocent and they are executing an innocent man!!”

(snip)

From 1993 to 2006, Barton was tried five times for the killing, a rarity in death penalty cases. His trials featured blood spatter evidence and an incentivized jailhouse witness.


“Walter Barton’s conviction relies solely upon two of the known leading causes of wrongful convictions — testimony from a jailhouse informant and flawed forensic science, in this case faulty blood pattern analysis,” Vanessa Potkin, the legal organization’s director of post-conviction litigation, said in a statement before the execution. “There is simply no reliable evidence left to sustain his conviction.”

I think that's a subscriber only site, sorry. Here's a nonlocal story with more details: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/20/walter-barton-missouri-man-executed-murder-despite-two-overturned/

[Jake Stern]

1. Blood lust must be sated

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Morning kick.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Lunchtime kick.

[DFW]

4. Red states like killing people.

They prefer it when they kill guilty people, but it's not an absolute requirement.