Missouri Supreme Court delays Skillicorn execution
Aug 21, 2008, 7:41 AM
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)-- The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday postponed the state's first scheduled execution in three years after attorneys for the condemned man claimed prison officials obstructed their efforts to prepare a clemency petition.
The state's highest court delayed Dennis Skillicorn's scheduled Aug. 27 execution by at least 30 days. The court said his attorneys were entitled to interview inmates and prison staff, on a voluntary basis, so long as that was consistent with prison security needs.
Department of Corrections Director Larry Crawford denied that prison officials had obstructed clemency interviews and said Skillicorn's counsel would get an opportunity to talk to inmates.
Skillicorn was sentenced to be executed for the 1994 murder of Richard Drummond, an Excelsior Springs businessman who stopped to help Skillicorn and Allen Nicklasson when their car broke down on Interstate 70 in Callaway County.
At the time, Skillicorn was on parole for an earlier Missouri murder conviction. Following Drummond's murder, Skillicorn and Nicklasson fled to Arizona, where they later received life sentences for two more murders.
Skillicorn's attorneys have contended that Nicklasson actually killed Drummond, and that Skillicorn has turned his life around in prison. Among other things, Skillicorn is an editor of Compassion magazine, sent free to death row inmates across the country.
