NEWS STORY: Missouri governor, in bow to papal plea, spares killer’s life

c. 1999 Religion News Service ST. LOUIS _ Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan agreed Thursday (Jan. 28) to a request from Pope John Paul II to commute the death sentence of a three-time murderer whose scheduled execution had been moved so as not to coincide with the pontiff’s visit here this week. Carnahan acted one day […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

ST. LOUIS _ Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan agreed Thursday (Jan. 28) to a request from Pope John Paul II to commute the death sentence of a three-time murderer whose scheduled execution had been moved so as not to coincide with the pontiff’s visit here this week.

Carnahan acted one day after being asked to do so during a brief meeting with the pope whose ardent opposition to capital punishment is based on the Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life. Their meeting followed the Wednesday evening prayer service that was the pope’s last event in St. Louis before returning to Rome.


In a statement, the governor said he had commuted the death sentence of 52-year-old Darrell J. Mease”because of the extraordinary circumstances of the pope’s request and the historical significance of the papal visit to the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri.” Carnahan, a Baptist, said he still supported capital punishment but that”because of a deep and abiding respect for the pontiff and all that he represents”he would spare Mease’s life.

Mease instead will spend life in prison without possibility of parole. He had originally been scheduled for execution Wednesday. In December, the date was changed to Feb. 10 so as not to coincide with John Paul’s 31-hour visit here.

At a news conference Thursday, St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali said he was”very, very pleased”by the turn of events.

Rigali said he and Vatican officials had met at his home with the Democratic governor prior to the Wednesday vespers service at the ornate Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Also present for the 20-minute meeting were Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican’s secretary of state, and Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the pope’s chief spokesman. Two members of Carnahan’s legal staff were also there.

After the service, the pope and Carnahan spoke briefly about the subject, Rigali said. It was at that point that John Paul himself asked the governor to commute Mease’s sentence.

Earlier Wednesday, at a papal Mass for more than 100,000 at this city’s Trans World Dome, John Paul had called the death penalty”a terrible rejection of God’s gift of life and love.” Human life, he said, must not be taken away even from”someone who has done great evil.””Modern society,”the Roman Catholic leader said,”has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying a chance to reform.” In 1988, Mease murdered three people in southwest Missouri in a case involving drugs. Mease confessed to hiding along a path near a farmhouse where his victims lived. He shot Lloyd J. Lawrence, 69; Frankie M. Lawrence, 56; and William Lawrence, 19, with a 12-gauge shotgun as they rode by him in an all-terrain vehicle.


A Greene County Circuit Court jury found Mease guilty and sentenced him to death.

In 1991, the pope unsuccessfully asked that Missouri spare the life of another man sentenced to death.

At his news conference, Rigali noted that the pope’s intervention had saved but one life and had by no means ended capital punishment.”The pope believes that all death penalties are out of place,”he said. While John Paul”is pleased that one person can be saved, his efforts will not cease until every man and woman can be saved.”

DEA END RIFKIN

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