Attorneys seek to continue execution stay

ST. LOUIS -- The Missouri Supreme Court has been asked to postpone setting an execution date for convicted murderer Dennis Skillicorn.

In a motion filed Thursday, his attorneys asked the court to extend the current stay of execution that expires Saturday. They claim the Missouri Department of Corrections continues to block access to staff and prisoner witnesses they want to interview at Potosi Correctional Center.

Last month, the state's highest court delayed Skillicorn's scheduled Aug. 27 execution by at least 30 days after his attorneys claimed prison officials obstructed their efforts to prepare a clemency petition.

The court said his attorneys were entitled to interview inmates and prison staff on a voluntary basis, so long as that was consistent with prison security needs.

It would have been the state's first scheduled execution in three years.

Last month, Corrections officials denied that the prison obstructed clemency interviews. A spokesman said the department would make a comment later Friday.

According to the motion, some witnesses said they feared intimidation or loss of their job if they spoke to Skillicorn's attorneys, saying Corrections officials made it clear in memos that they were not to do so.

The motion also claims the department is withholding part of Skillicorn's prisoner file that would attest to programs he has helped initiate in the prison such as hospice, parenting classes and a Bible ministry.

Skillicorn was sentenced to be executed for the 1994 murder of Richard Drummond, an Excelsior Springs businessman who stopped to help Skillicorn and Allen Nicklasson when their car broke down on Interstate 70 in Callaway County.

At the time, Skillicorn was on parole for an earlier Missouri murder conviction. Following Drummond's murder, Skillicorn and Nicklasson fled to Arizona, where they later received life sentences for two more murders.

Skillicorn's attorneys and Nicklasson himself have contended that Nicklasson actually killed Drummond, and that Skillicorn has turned his life around in prison. Among other things, Skillicorn is an editor of Compassion magazine, sent free to death row inmates across the country.

Missouri Supreme Court spokeswoman Beth Riggert said the court has not ruled on the motion nor set a new execution date.

"Everything is still pending and there's no way to predict when they might act," she said.