Subject: Dennis Skillicorn

• Letters from the week
  of June 4

  June 4, 2009

• Letters from the week
  of May 21

  May 21, 2009

• Dennis Skillicorn could be Missouri's first execution since 2005

  Capital attorneys with the Public Interest Litigation Clinic say they expect the Missouri Supreme Court to announce an execution date for Dennis Skillicorn, a 49-year-old inmate at the Potosi Correctional Center, of May 20, 2009. Skillicorn's previous execution date, August 27, 2008, was stayed after Skillicorn asserted that Potosi's warden was interfering with his council's attempts to interview prison staff in order to present a thorough request for clemency to the governor.Skillicorn and Alle

  April 20, 2009

• Missouri is about to execute Dennis Skillicorn. The state’s death penalty may not outlive him very long.

  May 14, 2009

• Prison staff speaks out on behalf of death-row inmate Dennis Skillicorn

  This video is made up of interviews from people who knew Dennis Skillicorn (the subject of this week's feature story, "Dead Man") at Potosi Correctional Center, including Rick Secoy, former Potosi guard, and volunteers from Set Free Ministries and other organizations within the prison. It's part of the clemency petition, which is now in the hands of Missouri's Gov. Jay Nixon. Execution is still set for May 20, 2009.

  May 13, 2009

• Reporter's Notebook: Statement of Allen Nicklasson

  Courtesy of Missouri Department of Corrections Allen Nicklasson, the other half of the Good Samaritan Killers, was troubled from an early age. Dennis Skillicorn's lawyer, Jenny Merrigan, describes him as "fascinating," and "truly mentally ill." Merrigan told me that at age four, he stabbed a man he saw raping his mother, who worked as a prostitute and kept Nicklasson in a closet while meeting johns. At age nine, he attacked his stepfather, who pressed charges. Nicklasson moved from juvenile inca

  May 13, 2009

• Update on Missouri's death penalty study: It's alive!

  Exciting times in the Missouri legislature: H.B. 484, a bill written to create a commission to study the state's death penalty, passed by a surprisingly large margin in a 127-31 vote, after the 2-year moratorium component was removed. Now it goes to the Senate for a vote -- if they can get to it by Friday when the session ends.According to a source watching today's proceedings, H.B. 484 is no more -- it's now bill sausage. "It got tacked onto another piece of legislation -- at least that's how I

  May 13, 2009

• Reporter's Notebook: James Betts' statement

  Dennis Skillicorn's lawyers tracked down the man responsible for the murder that first sent Skillicorn to prison. James Betts is currently serving a life sentence at the Jefferson City Correctional Center. He shot and killed 81-year-old Wendell Howell while he, Skillcorn and another man robbed Howell's home in 1979. On September 18, 2008, Betts wrote the following statement, which is included in the clemency petition for Skillicorn:

  May 13, 2009

• Reporter's Notebook: Skillicorn and the Mexico murder

  Dennis Skillicorn, courtesy of Paula SkillicornWhen Dennis Skillicorn was picked up by California Highway Patrol and turned over to the FBI, he was pretty fried. On the run, he'd spent weeks with little food, even less sleep, and God knows how much meth. Meth, he explained to me during our prison interview at Potosi, can turn reality into a paranoid, shape-shifting nightmare. "It will literally have you shooting the neighbor's cat because you think he might have a radio transmitter in his collar

  May 14, 2009

• Who gets clemency in Missouri?

  Courtesy of Missouri Department of CorrectionsDennis Skillicorn has been working his butt off to repay society for the debts of his crimes. But the last death row inmate to be granted clemency in Missouri didn't have to do anything at all -- he was spared thanks to divine intervention.Darrell Mease was on death row for a brutal triple homicide he committed in 1988. He'd staked out the road leading to the home of Lloyd Lawrence, his mentor in the meth-manufacturing business, and killed Lawrence,

  May 15, 2009

• Dennis Skillicorn is dead, but the Public Interest Litigation Clinic is still very much alive

  Jennifer Merrigan Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon never called Dennis Skillicorn's lawyer at the Public Interest Litigation Clinic to say that he'd denied Skillicorn's petition for clemency. Scott Holste, the governor's press secretary, wrote up a press release that was sent to media outlets shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday, but nobody notified Jennifer Merrigan, Skillicorn's lawyer. As a result, Skillicorn himself didn't find out that he was denied clemency until after Merrigan read it on the The Kansas

  May 20, 2009

• Hard Line

  May 28, 2009

• Letters from the week
  of May 28

  May 28, 2009

• Reginald Clemons gets to live a little longer

  Reginald ClemonsMissouri just pushed the "pause" button on executing any more prisoners, which is all too late for Dennis Skillicorn. The Missouri Supreme Court isn't booking any more executions since the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals slapped a federal stay on Reginald Clemons' date with the needle (Clemons' attorneys challenged Missouri's legal injection procedures to be sure executions are pain-free)."We're back on hold," incoming Chief Justice William Price Jr. told the Associated Press.

  June 24, 2009

• Dennis Skillicorn's widow reacts to the halting of Missouri executions

  Just a little over a month after the state ended the life of Dennis Skillicorn by lethal injection, executions are again on hold in Missouri. Incoming Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. told the The Associated Press yesterday that he didn't expect the Court to schedule any executions while the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals weighs an appeal on behalf of death row inmate Reginald Clemons that questions the constitutionality of Missouri's lethal injection protocol.The st

  June 25, 2009