A federal judge has denied a request from a 19-year-old woman to allow her to watch her father’s death by injection, upholding a Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution
to attend the execution, and the American Civil Liberties Union had filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Kansas City. The ACLU’s court filing said the age requirement served no safety purpose and violates Ramey’s constitutional rights. But U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes ruled late Friday that Ramey’s constitutional rights would not be violated by the law.
While the judge acknowledged that the law would cause emotional harm for Ramey, he found that was just one part of the court’s consideration and the law did not violate her constitutional rights. Johnson’s lawyers also have asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — he was 19 at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.
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