State prepared to execute man in sniper-style killings

POTOSI, Mo. -- Gov. Bob Holden late Tuesday decided not to halt the scheduled execution at 12:01 a.m. today of a man convicted in a sniper-style shooting rampage a decade ago that left four dead and terrorized California, Mo.

"The governor has decided not to grant clemency or otherwise intervene" in the scheduled execution of James R. Johnson, Holden spokesman Jerry Nachtigal said late Tuesday.

No other appeals were pending, so Holden's decision appeared to seal Johnson's fate. His execution would be the state's 54th since 1989, when Missouri resumed carrying out the death penalty. It would be the eighth since Holden took office, and Holden has never commuted a death sentence.

Nachtigal said that no new legal reasons had emerged to spare Johnson, 52, for the slayings of a sheriff's wife, a visiting sheriff and two deputies in a case that later provided political ammunition in two U.S. Senate confirmation battles.

Johnson declined interview requests from his Potosi Correctional Center cell.

Johnson's attorney, Chuck Gordon, said Monday that the clemency petition to Holden was Johnson's last hope to avoid lethal injection. The petition cited previous claims that Johnson's trial team botched his defense argument that he was suffering Vietnam combat flashbacks when he went on a shooting spree around the central Missouri community on Dec. 9-10, 1991.

It also asked that Holden consider Johnson's life before the shootings, when friends described him as mild-mannered, law-abiding and churchgoing, and his record as a spiritual leader among inmates, including serving as a clerk to the prison chaplain.

"We ask the governor to look not just at Dec. 9, but to look at the total of Jim's life," Gordon said.

The former military helicopter mechanic didn't deny pulling the trigger in the four deaths, events that led to one of the largest manhunts in Missouri history.

The shootings started the night of Dec. 9 at Johnson's home near Jamestown, where Moniteau County Reserve Deputy Les Roark had gone on a domestic disturbance call.

After Roark's shooting, prosecutors said, Johnson traveled to the home of Moniteau County Sheriff Kenny Jones. He shot Jones' wife, Pam, through a window as she read a Christmas story to a Bible class.

Prosecutor said he then picked off in sniper style two law enforcement officers who had rushed to California to assist local officials, Cooper County Sheriff Charles R. Smith and Miller County Deputy Sandra Wilson.

Johnson eventually surrendered Dec. 10 at the California home of an elderly woman who fed him, prayed with him and later got away safely.

The Johnson case also provided ammunition in political battles.

When then-U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., opposed the nomination of Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White to a federal judgeship, he cited White's minority dissent in a decision allowing Johnson's death sentence to stand.

Ashcroft said the dissent showed White was soft on criminals. White disagreed but became the first district court nominee defeated by the full Senate in 40 years.

Later, when Ashcroft was nominated as U.S. attorney general, White testified that the former senator had "seriously distorted" his record. Ashcroft was narrowly confirmed.