Missouri seemingly on track to conduct first execution of COVID era

As detailed in prior posts (linked below), Texas and a few other states have postponed more than a few executions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  But, providing more evidence that many are quite eager to get back to business as usual, it seems Missouri is ready to get back to executions tomorrow.  This CBS news report, headlined "Appeals court clears way for Missouri execution despite new questions over evidence," provides these details on a case that is notable for more reasons than just the timing of the scheduled execution:

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for a Missouri death row inmate to be executed on Tuesday, despite questions raised about evidence used to convict him.  The Sunday decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a 30-day stay of execution granted Friday to Walter Barton by a federal judge. 

Barton, 64, is now set to die by lethal injection for the 1991 killing of 81-year-old trailer park operator Gladys Kuehler. Kuehler was beaten, sexually assaulted and stabbed more than 50 times in Ozark, near Springfield.

The federal judge on Friday had decided the court needed more time to consider issues raised by Barton's attorneys, including new concerns about blood spatter evidence used to convict him.  Prosecutors appealed the judge's stay, and the 8th Circuit said it saw "no possibility of success" on Barton's claims, which it said presented no new evidence....

Barton's case has been tied up in court for years due to mistrials, appeals and two overturned convictions.  He was prosecuted five times between 1993 and 2006, and has always maintained his innocence.  The Missouri Supreme Court narrowly upheld his conviction in 2007, with multiple judges dissenting. One dissenting judge, Michael Wolff, wrote: "How could Barton have perpetrated the kind of violent, forceful attack that killed Ms. Kuehler and walked away quite unstained by the effort?"...

The American Bar Association has called on Republican Governor Mike Parson to issue an execution reprieve, citing the case's "troubling history" and "lingering doubts around guilt," and to commission an inquiry board to review Barton's conviction and sentence.  The ABA cited "unprecedented limitations on effective representation" due to the coronavirus pandemic.  In Barton's case, coronavirus restrictions have made it difficult for his attorneys to investigate the new evidence, the group wrote....

In a letter to Parson on Friday, The Innocence Project, the Midwest Innocence Project and the MacArthur Justice Center echoed the call for an independent inquiry board to review the case.  It said Barton's conviction "rests entirely upon evidence now known to be two of the leading causes of wrongful conviction: incentivized jailhouse informant testimony and blood spatter evidence, an infamously unreliable forensic 'science.'"...

The execution would be the first in the U.S. since March 5 and is scheduled despite concerns about the coronavirus that prompted other states to postpone lethal injections.

Some prior related capital COVID posts:

• "Appeals Court Delays Texas Execution Due To Coronavirus Outbreak" 
• Texas Court of Appeals stays a second execution for 60 days due to COVID-19 
• "How Coronavirus is Disrupting the Death Penalty" 
• Yet another Texas execution postponed due to coronavirus
• As Ohio and Tennessee delay more executions, might "incremental reopening" in Texas lead to resumption of lethal injections? 
• Texas postpones a sixth execution due to coronavirus 
• Though delaying a number of executions, COVID-19 takes the life of death row prisoner in Arizona 
• Yet another Texas execution postponed, though purportedly not for COVID reasons