Murder victim's son: Allow death-row inmates to donate organs, bodies for science

A 4-year-old Zach Sanders watched his father die, shot to death by a rage-filled Russell Bucklew nearly 23 years ago in Cape Girardeau County.

Now, Sanders wants Bucklew and other Missouri inmates on death row to be allowed to donate organs for transplant and/or their bodies for science.

State Rep. Jim Neely, R-Cameron, is sponsoring legislation this session to modify the state’s execution protocol to allow such donations.

Neely, a physician, first introduced the measure last year. A House committee unanimously backed it, but it did not get voted out of the House.

Sanders hopes lawmakers will approve it this year.

Sanders of Salem, Missouri, serves as executive director of Missouri Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.

He welcomed the legislation, House Bill 630.

“Organ and anatomical donations save lives and advance scientific understanding. Inmates need more opportunities to show contrition and pay restitution to society,” Sanders said in an email interview with the Southeast Missourian.

“The public overwhelmingly supports this idea,” Sanders said.

But he said in a follow-up interview by phone Friday not everyone likes the idea.

A group called Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (MADP) voiced racism concerns about the measure last year, Sanders said.

Sanders’ group disclosed an email from Staci Pratt, MADP executive director.

Pratt wrote “such a scheme would fall disproportionately on people of color and those in poverty — whose bodies have been exploited and abused, without recourse, in our country over the span of history.”

According to Pratt’s email, “It would also raise a macabre incentive to increase the use of the death penalty. The idea of voluntary consent in this context, which is intrinsically coercive as the individuals are facing their own homicide, is impossible to achieve.”

But Sanders said the legislation is not racist. There are more whites than blacks on death row in Missouri, he said.

In addition, inmates would have a choice whether to donate organs and/or their bodies to science.

Missouri does not have a law prohibiting inmates from donating organs, but the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) routinely denies those requests, Sanders said.

“DOC doesn’t operate very transparently so it’s difficult to get them to explain their policy on inmate organ donation,” he said.

Anne Precythe, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, has argued the state is not required to provide any alternative method of execution.

If the bill becomes law, the Department of Corrections would have to implement procedures to carry out the mandate, Sanders said.

According to Sanders’ group, a physician who specializes in organ and anatomical donations has said a lethal injection procedure specifically designed to maximize organ viability would deliver lethal drugs more directly to the brain.

Sanders said in a news release it would “drastically reduce pain and suffering for inmates like Bucklew.”

The U.S. Supreme Court last March granted a stay of execution for the second time in four years to Bucklew, who has a rare medical condition his attorney said could cause blood-filled tumors to burst inside his head during a lethal injection.

The condition, cavernous hemangioma, is an ailment causing weakened and malformed blood vessels, tumors in his head and throat and on his lip, and vein problems.

Sanders wrote in the email to the newspaper he doubts Bucklew would be an eligible organ donor because of the disease. But he suggested “donating his (Bucklew’s) body to science” could help in studying the rare disease.

Sanders said his group is not opposed to the death penalty, but wants the system reformed.

“Capital punishment should be reserved for the worst of the worst. It’s easy to think of all the inmates on death row as nothing more than monsters, but I know a lot of these people actually are deeply remorseful about the pain they’ve caused and desire to work to pay restitution,” Sanders wrote.

“Instead of wasting millions of dollars trying to execute those people, we should keep them locked up and working in prison,” he added.

Sanders wrote his father’s murder has had an impact on his views about the death penalty.

“Growing up, I thought that the prosecutors were the good guys for trying to kill the man who murdered my father. They never really told us how long all of this would take or that this execution would make Bucklew even more infamous,” wrote Sanders.

Sanders waited inside the state prison at Bonne Terre, Missouri, last March to witness Bucklew’s execution.

“After the stay last year, I was pretty torn up, yet again, and I realized that my dad probably wouldn’t want to see his family investing any more emotional energy into all of this,” he wrote.

“Bucklew has already taken enough from us. I’m sick and tired of hearing about him,” he added. “I’ve accepted the fact that he’ll probably die of natural causes before he’s ever executed.”

mbliss@semissourian.com

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