No Firing Squads for Execution at Bonne Terre Prison

(Bonne Terre) The U.S. Supreme Court says a convicted Missouri killer will not be executed by a firing squad at the Bonne Terre prison.

Ernest Lee Johnson of Columbia was sentenced to death for the high-profile killings of three people with a hammer at a Columbia gas station in 1994.

Johnson appealed his execution in 2016 claiming his brain tumor and epilepsy would make death by lethal injection unusually painful.

Johnson wanted to be executed by firing squad. He said lethal injection would be akin to torture because he suffers from epileptic seizures and significant brain damage, both the result of brain surgery for a tumor.

The State of Missouri has not set a date for Johnson’s execution.