Missouri man convicted of 1996 murders executed by lethal injection

A Missouri man who was convicted of the murders of two elderly people in 1996 was executed by lethal injection this week in the country’s fifth fatal execution of the year.

Carman Deck was convicted of murdering Zelma and James Long by shooting them in the backs of their heads when he robbed them in 1996. After several trials and appeals, Deck was executed on Tuesday evening by the Missouri Department of Corrections. 

Deck’s attorneys appealed his death sentence multiple times, once on the grounds of faulty jury instructions, once by the Supreme Court, and once when a judge overturned the sentence saying there was not enough evidence to warrant a death sentence. In 2020, a federal appeals court overturned that ruling, saying the previous judge had ruled erroneously. 

Elizabeth Carlyle, one of Deck’s attorneys, called his execution “unjust and immoral.” She claims Deck was subject to a pattern of abuse as a child, and was lured into a life of crime. She said close family members “taught him to steal” which ultimately “transformed him from a nonviolent thief into the person who committed two terrible murders.”

Carlyle says the third jury did not have the opportunity to hear from any witnesses that could attest to Deck’s difficult upbringing.

“Due to the passage of time caused by the State of Missouri, the jury did not hear from a single live witness who knew Carman before the crime,” Carlyle said. “This botched process simply provides insufficient guardrails to support taking Carman’s life. Life imprisonment without parole would have been a just and adequate punishment for him.”

Deck was pronounced dead at 6:10PM on Tuesday. None of his family were in attendance, but members of the Long family were there to witness the execution. Tonight, justice was served,” said Anne Precythe, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.