James Johnson was executed by the State of Missouri for four murders including the murders of three police officers
According to court documents James Johnson was having a domestic issue with his wife when Deputy Sheriff Leslie Roark came to investigate he would be fatally shot. Johnson would then go to the home of County Sheriff Kenny Jones and began to fire through the windows killing the Sheriff wife Pam Jones.
James Johnson would go to the home of Deputy Sheriff Russell Borts who would be shot five times but thankfully survived the attack
James Johnson would then go to the Moniteau County Sheriff’s Office where he began to fire killing Cooper County Sheriff Charles Smith and Deputy Sheriff Sandra Wilson
James Johnson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
James Johnson would be executed by lethal injection on January 9 2002
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When Was James Johnson Executed
James Johnson was executed on January 9 2002
James Johnson Case
Barring a last-minute sentence reduction from Gov. Bob Holden, the first Missouri execution of 2002 will proceed as planned early Wednesday morning, as a California, Mo., man will die for a 1991 shooting rampage that killed four people.
Jim Johnson is scheduled to die from lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Johnson, 51, shot and killed Moniteau County Deputy Leslie Roark, Pam Jones, wife of county Sheriff Ken Jones, Cooper County Sheriff Charles Smith and Miller County Deputy Sandra Miller on Dec. 9, 1991. Johnson made several appeals concerning the four death sentences, which the Missouri Supreme Court upheld. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1998 refused to review his appeal. Johnson will be the 54th person to be executed in Missouri since the 1989 reinstatement of the death penalty.
Lawyers for Johnson, a Vietnam War veteran, claimed he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from his stint in the Army in 1970. He was convicted in Lebanon, Mo., in 1993 and sentenced to death. Johnson’s 1998 appeal later served as political cannon fodder, as then-U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft used Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White’s dissent in the death penalty case to block White’s nomination to a federal judgeship in St. Louis. Johnson’s lawyer, Chuck Gordon, met with Holden’s staff last week to petition for clemency. Gordon, citing Johnson’s position as a model prisoner, said that December day was an aberration. “He was a law-abiding, Christian, church-going, well-respected member of his California community,” Gordon said. “He participates in prison ministry activities” and “is respected by volunteers, inmates and staff alike. When you look at those things, before December 9 and after December 9, your common sense just tells you December 9 was a horrible anomaly.”
Jeff Stack of the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, which will help lead a Jefferson City vigil outside the Capitol from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow, said that Johnson’s guilt is irrefutable but his service to society should continue. “He’s been a remarkable individual in the prison, assistant to the chaplain last eight or nine years,” Stack said. “He’s been giving although he’s been living under the shadow of death. He can continue to give.” Stack’s group will also hold a vigil from 5 to 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Boone County Courthouse and at 6:30 p.m. at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church at 204 E. Ash St.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said Johnson’s lawyers did the best they could with a difficult situation but because of the clear-cut nature of the crime, options were limited. “He was completely guilty and confessed to murdering four innocent victims in a hunting-down type of fashion that resulted in a night of terror for an entire county,” Nixon said this morning. “There were not a plethora of strategic options for the defense team.” Nixon also recalled the effects that rippled through the Missouri law enforcement community after the slayings. “I think that it really reminds a lot of us in law enforcement about how tough the job is, how you put your life on the line,” he said.
