Saint Louis — The fate of a Missouri man convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband nearly two decades ago appears to depend on the U.S. Supreme Court, just hours before his scheduled execution.
Missouri Department of Corrections via AP, file
Brian Dorsey, 52, is expected to die by injection Tuesday evening at Bonne Terre State Prison. Governor Mike Parson Monday rejected a request for pardon. Two appeals are still pending before the United States Supreme Court. One focuses on Dorsey’s good behavior since his incarceration.
The other says his life should be spared because his lawyers had a conflict of interest. The two public defenders received flat fees of $12,000, which gave them no incentive to invest time in his case, the appeal states. On their recommendation, Dorsey pleaded guilty although he had no agreement with prosecutors that he would be spared the death penalty.
Dorsey would be the first person put to death this year in Missouri, following four executions in 2023. Another man, David Hosier, is scheduled to be executed June 11 for the 2009 murder of a Jefferson City woman. Nationally, four men have been executed so far in 2009. 2024 – one each in Alabama, Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma.
The Dorsey Murders
Dorsey, 52, formerly of Jefferson City, was convicted of killing Sarah and Ben Bonnie on Dec. 23, 2006, at their home near New Bloomfield. Prosecutors said that earlier in the day, Dorsey called Sarah Bonnie looking to borrow money to pay two drug dealers who were in his apartment.
Dorsey went to the Bonnies’ house that evening. After they went to bed, Dorsey took a shotgun from the garage and killed them both before sexually assaulting Sarah Bonnie’s body, prosecutors said. Police said Dorsey stole several items from the home and attempted to pay off a drug debt with some of the stolen property.
A day after the murders, Sarah Bonnie’s parents went to see the Bonnies after they failed to show up for a family reunion. They found the couple’s 4-year-old daughter sitting on the couch watching television. She told her grandparents that her mother “won’t wake up.”
Dorsey turned himself in to police three days after the murders.
Rallying to Dorsey’s Defense
Dorsey’s lawyers said he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis at the time of the crime. In prison, he became sober, they said.
“Governor Parson chose to ignore the wealth of information available to him showing that Brian Dorsey is particularly deserving of mercy,” Megan Crane, Dorsey’s attorney, said in a statement. “Brian spent every day of his time in prison trying to make amends for his crime, and dozens of correctional officers have attested to his remorse, transformation and commitment to service.”
Dozens of corrections officers have vouched for Dorsey’s rehabilitation.
“The Brian I’ve known for years couldn’t hurt anyone,” one wrote in the clemency petition. “The Brian I know doesn’t deserve to be executed.”
In a letter to Parson as part of his clemency request, former Missouri Supreme Court Justice Michael Wolff wrote that he was present in court when it rejected the appeal of his conviction to death in 2009. Today, he says, that decision was wrong.
“Missouri public defenders now no longer use flat fees for defense, in recognition of the professional standard that such an arrangement gives the attorney an inherent financial conflict of interest,” Wolff wrote.
Enforcement procedure called into question
Dorsey’s execution raised new concerns about Missouri’s protocol, which makes no provision for the use of anesthetics. Dorsey’s lawyers describe him as obese, diabetic and a former intravenous drug user, all factors that could make it difficult to obtain a vein to inject the deadly drug. When this happens, a reduction procedure is sometimes necessary.
A cut involves making an incision and then using forceps to pull tissue away from an interior vein. A federal lawsuit on behalf of Dorsey argued that without local anesthesia, he would be in so much pain that it would interfere with his right to religious freedom by preventing him from having meaningful interaction with his spiritual advisor, including the administration of last rites .
An agreement was reached Saturday in which the state took unspecified steps to limit the risk of extreme pain. The agreement does not spell out specific changes the state would agree to, including whether anesthetics would be available.
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