Ku Klux Klan member Joseph Paul Franklin (63) was put to death on Nov. 20th at 6:17am under new execution protocol. Franklin was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering Gerald Gordon (42) and severely injuring two civilians in a St. Louis synagogue parking lot. Franklin is linked to 18 other murders, and is known to be a white supremacist. Franklin was openly racist towards African Americans and people of the Jewish faith.
The U.S. Supreme Court revoked two stays that would have prolonged Franklin's life. Franklin would have had the chance to dispute Missouri's new lethal drug protocol; arguing mental incompetence to assuage his murder charges.
Yahoo News reports rulings of two federal judges, granting Franklin stays, were revoked without delay by the state.
In the 1970s Franklin was convicted of murdering eight people in racially motivated assaults nationwide Including: two African American men in Utah, two teens in Ohio, and an interracial couple in Wisconsin.
Missouri has enacted a new state wide execution procedure, utilizing compounded pentobarbital which is a fast-acting barbiturate. Controversy has sparked from the new order due to the nature of death the barbiturate precipitates: death by respiratory arrest.
One of Franklin's gunshot victims, Larry Flynt, filed a proposal with the American Civil Liberties Union in the hopes of sparing Franklin's life- forcing him to live out his six life prison sentence, according to RT .
Flynt comments on his proposal:
"In all the years since the shooting, I have never come face-to-face with Franklin. I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire-cutters and pliers, so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. But, I do not want to kill him, nor do I want to see him die, I just don't think that [the] government should be in the business of killing people. And I think punishment by putting someone in a 3-by-6 cell is a lot greater than if you snuff out their life in a few seconds with a lethal injection,”