On Oct. 14, Lance Shockley is scheduled to be executed, but petitioners are still fighting for his clemency. Shockley was convicted for the 2005 murder of Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Graham, Jr., following a trial where a judge pronounced his sentence after a jury deadlocked on terms of his punishment.
Shockley's representatives are still seeking clemency on procedural grounds and asking Gov. Mike Kehoe for a stay of execution.
The crime
In Mar. 2005, Graham was shot and fatally killed by an assailant outside his home in Van Buren, Missouri. Graham was the presiding investigative officer of a drunk driving incident involving Shockley, where the passenger of his vehicle, Jeff Kohler, was killed.
The state theorized that Shockley killed Graham to stop the car accident investigation. Shockley's defense team argued insufficient reasoning and an "improper direction of investigative attention to Shockley rather than other possible perpetrators," according to the Shockley v. State appeal.
The judge's ruling
A pivotal pillar of the clemency argument is the jury's lack of unanimity in their sentence. Missouri is one of two states, along with Indiana, that allows for a judge to impose a death sentence when the jury is deadlocked during a capital trial.
Jeremy Weis is one of Shockley's attorneys, an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the Capital Habeus Unit in the Western District of Missouri.
"I don't blame the jury for making the decision that they did, but they still had doubts," Weis said. "They had doubts enough that they could not decide that death was appropriate, so they didn't make that recommendation."
A public opinion survey by University of Southern California psychology professor Nicholas Scurich found 65% of Missouri voters believe Shockley's sentence should be changed to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
"Even among people who support the death penalty in principle, a good deal of them favor clemency in this case," Scurich said.
The study found two major issues that supporters of clemency cited: the unusual nature of the judge's sentence imposition and the lack of certain evidence.
"A lot of people were very uncomfortable with the fact that a single person stepped in and imposed the death sentence," Scurich said. "The second issue that gave people pause was that they recognize there is circumstantial evidence pointing towards Shockley, but they felt this evidence was not strong enough for a death sentence."
On Oct. 7, a petition containing more than 31,000 petition signatures advocating for clemency was presented to Kehoe, according to Dr. Heidi Moore, the Executive Director of the advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Court proceedings and evidence
Reached by e-mail, Missouri State Highway Patrol Assistant Director Eric Brown declined to comment on Shockley's case or any claims made by Shockley's lawyers before next week's scheduled execution.
Weis claims many court proceedings in Shockley's case were flawed, including an insufficient defense by his original lawyers. Weis was assigned the case by the Public Defender's office in Sept. 2019. He said that there are still 15 different items recovered from the crime scene that were never DNA-tested, despite appeals to do so.
A piece of evidence the state argued ties Shockley to the crime is a bullet found in Sgt. Graham, which the state claimed matches a firearm found in Shockley's uncle's house. Two examiners have contrasting views of the ballistics, though. The forensic examiner who worked for the Missouri Highway Patrol claimed a match, but an independent former FBI examiner said there wasn't sufficient information from the bullet to definitively say what gun might have fired it.
"The amount of material left from the bullet that was recovered body, you can't tell the size of the shell. Within that range, there are tens of thousands of guns that could have fired it potentially. It's up to the examiner to determine the points of similarity to sufficiently say that it would be enough to be consistent with," Weis said.
Weis said the Highway Patrol forensic investigator testified post-conviction and sent an email out to the prosecutor conveying doubts on his testimony, but then retracted his hesitations.
Alyssa O'Brien is a Capital Mitigation Specialist and a Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Missouri. She, along with Moore, attended an event Tuesday organized by students of the University of Missouri School of Law to talk about Shockley's case. O'Brien and her team conducted a clemency investigation campaign for Shockley, which included inquiries into the court proceedings. In their investigation, they claim many jurors were hesitant on voting for a death sentence because of the lack of empirical evidence, especially without a clear murder weapon.
"Even one juror said that it would not have taken much more evidence to be swayed to vote not guilty during the guilt phase," O'Brien said. O'Brien said several jurors have signed declarations saying they would not oppose clemency if the governor were to grant it.
Shockley today
Another component in the case for clemency is Shockley's positive impact in the institution he is incarcerated at, Potosi Correctional Center.
Moore formerly worked as a parole officer at Potosi. She said life in prison without parole is a suitable alternative to the death penalty because of Shockley's good behavior while behind bars.
"Lance can still visit with his daughters; he can still have a positive impact in the community alive," she said.
A protest walk is scheduled the day before the execution — Oct. 13 — at 9:30 a.m. at the Boone County Courthouse. The event will begin with guest speakers before walking to Ashland. The group then plans to walk from Ashland to Jefferson City on Tuesday, where a vigil outside the governor's office will be held at noon.
Shockley is slated to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Copyright 2025 KBIA