Group plans demonstration to protest the execution of Ernest Johnson

Columbia Missourian

COLUMBIA — A group of Columbia residents is pushing to stop the execution of Ernest Johnson, who killed three people during a robbery at a Columbia convenience store in 1994.

The Columbia chapter of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will demonstrate from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday in front of the Daniel Boone City Building, according to a news release.. The protesters are calling attention to Johnson's execution by lethal injection, scheduled for next Tuesday. They also plan to mourn the deaths of the victims, Mary Bratcher, Fred Jones and Mable Scruggs.

According to the release, Johnson is intellectually disabled, and executing him would violate a 2001 Supreme Court ruling  that executing a mentally disabled person constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

Johnson was convicted in May 1995 after killing Jones, Bratcher and Scruggs with a hammer at the Casey's General Store where the three victims worked, according to previous Associated Press reporting.

Johnson's attorneys appealed his convictions, but the Missouri Supreme Court rejected the appeal in 2008 after voting 4-3 that the defense must prove a mental disability, the Associated Press reported in 2008.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Johnson would be the seventh person executed this year in Missouri. Only Texas has executed more people in 2015.