Missouri law allowed a judge to sentence Shockley to death in 2009 even after a jury deadlocked and couldn’t decide on the punishment. Last week, advocates marched to Gov. Mike Kehoe's office to deliver a petition with 31,000 signatures asking for an investigation.

Rejecting calls for mercy from opponents of the death penalty, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe announced Monday that Lance Shockley's execution will be carried out as planned at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

The execution, the first under Kehoe's governorship, follows more than a decade of Shockley's failed legal appeals.

Kehoe called the 2005 murder of Missouri Highway Patrol trooper Carl DeWayne Graham, Jr., a "brutal and deliberate crime" in the press release.

Kehoe added the killing "was an attack not only on a dedicated law enforcement offi

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