The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to halt the upcoming execution of Missouri inmate Carman Deck, and Republican Gov. Mike Parson said he will not grant clemency.
Deck, 56, is scheduled to die by injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre for killing a couple at their Jefferson County home in July 1996.
In a , the Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Deck.
Earlier in the day, the governor said he wouldn't commute Deck's sentence to life in prison.
鈥淢r. Deck has received due process, and three separate juries of his peers have recommended sentences of death for the brutal murders he committed,鈥 . 鈥淭he State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Deck鈥檚 sentence according to the Court鈥檚 order and deliver justice.鈥
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Deck鈥檚 lawyer, Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, declined to comment on Monday.
Deck, of south St. 亚洲无码 County,聽admitted that he killed James Long, 69, and his 67-year-old wife, Zelma Long, after robbing them at their home near De Soto on July 8, 1996.
Deck was sentenced to death three times, and each time the penalty was overturned on appeal. However, a three-judge panel reinstated Deck鈥檚 death sentence in October 2020.聽聽
Deck鈥檚 lawyers, in their clemency petition submitted to Parson last week, said Deck was abused as a child and he and his siblings were left alone often without food. The 鈥渇ailure of the Missouri system to protect Mr. Deck as a child is a primary reason his life took the tragic path that it did,鈥 his lawyers told the governor.
Carlyle, Deck鈥檚 lawyer, declined to make Deck available for an interview with the Post-Dispatch. Deck would be the fifth man to die by lethal injection in Missouri in nearly 5陆 years.
So far in 2022, four executions have been carried out in the United States, and the 11 last year were the fewest since 1988.
Earlier Monday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee paused executions for the rest of the year to enable a review of the state鈥檚 lethal injection procedures. That decision came after a testing oversight forced the state to call off the execution of Oscar Smith an hour before he was to die on April 21.
The number of executions in the U.S. has declined significantly since peaking at 98 in 1998. The drop has coincided with a decline in public support for capital punishment that has fallen from a high of 80% in 1994 to 54% in 2021, according to Gallup polls. Since the mid-1990s, opposition to capital punishment has risen from under 20% to about 45%.
To read more about the background of Carman Deck and the couple he killed, click聽here.
The Associated Press and Post-Dispatch staff writer Kim Bell contributed to this report.