Bucklew scheduled for execution again; U.S. Supreme Court denied appeal in April

The Missouri Supreme Court has set another execution date for convicted murderer Russell Bucklew, and this time former Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle hopes the punishment is carried out.

The court Tuesday set Bucklew’s execution for Oct. 1 over objections from his Kansas City, Missouri, attorney, Cheryl Pilate, who, in a court motion, described the scheduled execution as “state-sponsored torture.”

In the motion filed earlier this month, Pilate wrote the court “should defer setting an execution date to allow for the appointment of an independent medical expert to evaluate Mr. Bucklew’s present fitness for Missouri’s current execution protocol.”

Bucklew’s execution date has been set three times previously but halted over concerns about his medical condition. The condition, cavernous hemangioma, causes blood-filled tumors to grow in his head, neck and throat.

Bucklew’s attorney has said the tumors could burst during execution by lethal injection, causing him to choke on his own blood.

In March 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution just before the lethal injection was set to begin. It was the second such stay issued by the high court on behalf of Bucklew in four years.

Swingle, who prosecuted Bucklew for killing a man in Cape Girardeau County in 1996 during a violent crime spree, was at the state prison to witness the execution. He told the Southeast Missourian last year he was frustrated at the high court’s last-minute decision.

“It is just absurd that this guy is just too sick to kill,” Swingle said at the time.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled in April 2018 the state could move ahead with the execution. The decision came on a 5-4 vote, with the court’s five conservative justices rejecting Bucklew’s argument subjecting him to lethal injection would violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Swingle, who now works as a prosecutor for the City of St. Louis, said Tuesday he plans to go to the prison to witness Bucklew’s execution this fall.

He said he plans to bring along a photograph of Stephanie Ray, Bucklew’s former girlfriend.

“Stephanie Ray had told me ... that she wanted her face to be the last thing Bucklew saw before he died, and if the prison officials let me do so, I plan to hold up a photograph of her so that her wishes are carried out, and that she is the last thing he sees before he dies,” Swingle said.

Ray later married John Shuffit. In 2009, he murdered her in Perry County and then killed himself.

Thirteen years earlier, Stephanie Ray had broken up with Bucklew and had a new boyfriend, Michael Sanders.

Bucklew shot Michael Sanders to death in front of his sons, John Michael, then 6, and Zach, then 4, before kidnapping Ray, at gunpoint and raping her.

Police caught up to Bucklew in St. Louis, but he later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail and attacked Ray’s mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.

Even all these years later, Swingle can’t get Bucklew out of his mind.

Swingle said he has prosecuted more than 100 homicide defendants in his career and “to this day, he (Bucklew) remains the most purely evil person I have ever prosecuted.”

Bucklew has spent more than two decades in prison.

He was first scheduled to die in 1998 before appeals were initiated.

In May 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court at the last minute halted his execution and sent the case back to a lower federal court amid concerns about Bucklew’s medical condition.

Attorneys for Bucklew suggested in 2015 a firing squad would be a better method of carrying out the death sentence.

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Russell Bucklew case at a glance

May 19, 1997: Convicted of first-degree murder

May 26, 1998: Missouri Supreme Court affirms conviction and sentence

Aug. 25, 1998: State Supreme Court overrules Bucklew’s motion for rehearing, sets execution for Dec. 4, 1998

Nov. 20, 1998: Execution stayed while appeals proceed

Feb. 18, 2000: Appeal filed with Missouri Supreme Court

Jan. 31, 2001: State Supreme Court rules against Bucklew

Oct. 7, 2013: U.S. Supreme Court denies Bucklew’s petition

April 9, 2014: Missouri Supreme Court sets execution for May 21, 2014

May 21, 2014: U.S. Supreme Court issues stay of execution

Nov. 21, 2017: Missouri Supreme Court sets execution for March 20, 2018

March 20, 2018: U.S. Supreme Court issues stay of execution

April 1, 2019: U.S. Supreme Court rules Missouri can execute Bucklew

May 3, 2019: State of Missouri files motion to set execution date

June 25, 2019: Missouri Supreme Court sets execution for Oct. 1

Source: Missouri Supreme Court