Nixon- Death row appeals dragging on

Of the 55 men on Missouri's death row, seven have exhausted all their appeals. Attorney General Jay Nixon recently expressed some frustration over the fact that the Missouri Supreme Court has not responded to his request to set execution dates for those seven men. Nixon said one case -- involving Donald Jones of St. Louis, who was convicted of stabbing his grandmother to death in 1993 -- should have been settled two years ago.

The last Missouri execution was October 2003. Two convicts were executed that year, Nixon said. Six executions were carried out in 2002.

Chief Justice Ronnie White has denied that the court is dragging its feet on executions.

"While it may seem strange to some, a certain degree of tension between the branches can produce a more effective government for the people as a whole while ensuring that no branch of government can impinge on individual rights inappropriately," White said during his State of the Missouri Judiciary address before the Missouri Legislature last week.

Of the 55 men on death row, two are from Cape Girardeau County -- Andrew A. Lyons since 1997 and Russell E. Bucklew since 1998.

Scott Holste of the attorney general's office said that both men are currently awaiting federal appeals. Holste said it is unknown when the appellate court will rule, but noted that Bucklew filed his federal appeal earlier this month.

Since being sentenced, Bucklew and Lyons have both gone through the automatic direct appeal, and the state Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower state court. Then the federal Supreme Court refused to hear their cases from direct appeal, Holste said. Those appeals concerned the validity of the verdict against them, he said.

"Now they have filed habeas corpus petitions in federal district court," Holste said. "That raises the issue of whether or not they had effective assistance of their counsel, their mental capabilities. Those are issues they're trying to raise in front of the federal appeals court. They lost at federal district court, and now they are taking it to the next level and asking the appeals court to find in their favor."

Failing that, he said, the next step would be to take it again before the U.S. Supreme Court, and at that point, they've exhausted their appeals.

The seven death row inmates Nixon wants Supreme Court action on have gone through that entire process, Holste said. The attorney general now wants execution dates.

Cape County cases

Although Lyons and Bucklew are still waiting for a decision from the federal appeals court, Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle, who prosecuted both, said he hopes the appellate court will uphold the state's verdict.

"From a local prosecutor's viewpoint, I would think Bucklew and Lyons should be nearing the point where the end is near," he said.

Swingle called Bucklew "probably the meanest person I ever prosecuted."

Spurned by a former girlfriend on Valentine's Day in 1996, Bucklew first tortured and threatened to kill her, but relented when she pleaded for her life and promised to go back to him. Once freed, she fled, and Bucklew tracked her until he found her living with a friend from work.

"He shot that friend in front of his children," Swingle said.

He then pistol-whipped the woman, kidnapped and raped her. Then, while the friend lay bleeding to death, Bucklew led police from several agencies up Interstate 55 until he was trapped in a rolling roadblock in Jefferson County. Swingle said Bucklew shot at police with one hand while holding a gun to the head of his hostage with the other.

While in jail, Swingle said, Bucklew called the former girlfriend's mother and threatened to kill her. The threat became real for her when Bucklew escaped from jail.

Even though the woman's mother had gone into hiding while Bucklew was at large and had police protection when she did return briefly to her home, Bucklew escaped detection when he hid in a closet. He attacked her with a knife and a hammer before being recaptured.

"During prosecution I called him a homicidal Energizer bunny -- he just keeps coming," Swingle said. "He's an example of somebody who's going to hurt somebody if he ever gets out."

Lyons was another whose crime stemmed from his relationship with a woman. After the woman moved out of the house they shared and into her mother's house, Lyons shot the woman and her mother along with his own 11-month-old son.

Lyons confessed to killing all three.

"It's been long enough for both these cases," Swingle said.

Although these two cases still have some appeals steps they can go through, Holste said that Nixon is concerned about the seven that have gone through all the appeals but remain on death row.

"We certainly plan to oppose any kind of effort to have those convictions overturned," Holste said.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160