Brian Dorsey Execution

Brian Dorsey is an example of the difference between a person who is a good (as far as any can be) candidate for the death penalty (see last time) and a range of murderers who deserve a long prison term.  

One news article discussed his crimes this way:

The murders happened on December 23, 2006, hours after Dorsey called his cousin asking for help, according to a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court last month, which recounted the history of the case. Two drug dealers were in his apartment, Dorsey said, and he needed money to pay them.

Sarah and Benjamin went to Dorsey’s apartment, and the drug dealers left. They then took Dorsey back to their home, the ruling notes, and Dorsey spent the evening drinking and playing pool with Sarah and Benjamin’s family and friends.

Later that night, the ruling says, Dorsey entered their room with a shotgun and fatally shot them both at close range. Court records say Dorsey raped Sarah’s body, but Dorsey’s attorneys argue this remains an allegation because he was never charged with and never pleaded guilty to rape or sexual assault.

His lawyers now flagged a range of problems. Was he truly guilty enough given a drug-induced psychosis? 

“If they had they would have known what we know now, which was Brian had lifelong chronic depression, and that he had turned to self-medicating with alcohol and crack cocaine at this point because other treatments had failed,” Crane, one of Dorsey’s current attorneys, said. “And he had a history of experiencing psychosis when withdrawing from crack, experienced paranoid and persecutory delusions and hallucinations.”

Was the flat-free arrangement for his trial lawyers liable to encourage cutting corners in his defense? Was the current Department of Corrections acting director legitimately in charge? Will the cutdown procedure ("shrouded in secrecy") cause too much pain? 

I have commonly cited the problem of long terms on death row. Traditionally -- before the death penalty was restarted in the mid-1970s -- about fifteen years after conviction would be considered a long time. Now? It is almost (especially if COVID slowed things down) a moderate amount of time. OTOH, unlike multiple cases, his lawyers do include this as one of the arguments in his final Hail Mary petitions. 

The strongest argument on his side is the overall legitimate public interest in executing him. Dorsey is a case where there appears to be real rehabilitation. He admits his guilt. He has served his time in good behavior. He is even trusted to give haircuts.  Again to summarize:

Dorsey accepts responsibility, the petition says, and in the years since has sought to atone: He has a spotless prison disciplinary record and works as a barber for the correctional staff, a position of immense trust.

Indeed, more than 70 correctional officers support the inmate’s clemency petition, it says, which also cites the support of five jurors from the penalty phase of his trial, a former Missouri Supreme Court justice and at least three Republican state representatives.

A drug-induced double murder with the victims' four-year-old daughter left an orphan (the summary notes she was around, but wound up physically unhurt) does not sound like a gratuitous application of the death penalty on some level. This would be true even if he does not have a history of violence. There is mitigation and it is quite possible that in another case someone would receive life. But, I can understand the choice.

Nonetheless, this underlines what happens when you leave someone in prison for years. Brian Dorsey now is not the person he was then. He is being punished. A Missouri prison, especially death row, is a serious punishment. Leave him in there for more than fifteen years, if that is what it takes. But, is an execution -- as compared to many others who did comparable crimes or worse -- appropriate?

Court opinions that argue the death penalty is unconstitutional note that it does not fulfill appropriate penal purposes. One thing cited is rehabilitation. The book A Lesson Before Dying suggests this might not be totally true. An extended time in prison before execution can entail some degree of rehabilitation. Brian Dorsey appears to have had some.

There are enough issues that someone should be concerned about an execution depriving him of life without due process of law.

The governor denied the request -- supported by many prison officials -- to commute his sentence. The final two appeals were rejected by the Supreme Court without comment. This follows a theme, including no statement ("I'm concerned but") or dissent from any of the liberals.  

(The link also vaguely references some agreement -- details were not supplied about what was involved -- about the state promising to reduce possible problems with the cutdown procedure. Okay?)  

One appeal cited Dorsey’s record of good behavior since his incarceration and said he should not be put to death because he has been rehabilitated.

The other appeal said his life should be spared because his trial lawyers had a conflict of interest. The pair of public defenders were paid a $12,000 flat fee that provided them with no incentive to invest time in his case, the appeal said. On their recommendation, Dorsey pleaded guilty despite having no agreement with prosecutors that he would be spared the death penalty.

The first claim is particularly novel. I am not aware of one quite like it. It sounds like a policy argument made by advocates requesting a commutation of a death sentence. It is made here as a legal argument. Compare Dorsey with the last person executed, who is less sympathetic.

The second claim is more familiar, a twist on why there was a deficiency of counsel. Likewise, a recent execution also involved concerns that corners were cut when paying for counsel. When something keeps on coming up, maybe Jackson and/or Sotomayor can talk about it?  

Anyway, Missouri executed him. The next person can stop worrying about rehabilitation in prison and so on, perhaps, since it isn't that relevant.