MISSOURI EXECUTES 5TH INMATE THIS YEAR

Jerome Mallet became the fifth inmate put to death this year in Missouri and the 51st since 1989, when the state reinstated the death penalty.
The 42-year-old Missouri man had claimed he shot James Froemsdorf, a nine-year veteran of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, in self-defence after the patrolman allegedly hit him and pulled a gun on him on an Interstate 55 roadside in Perry County.
But in a videotaped statement made after his arrest, Mallett said he shot Froemsdorf, 35, during a struggle for the gun.
Mallett said mistakes by his attorney, Kenny Hulshof, caused him to receive the death penalty. Hulshof, who went on to become a prosecutor and is now a Republican congressman, did not return calls for comment.
In his original appeals, Mallett´s attorneys argued their client, a black man, didn´t receive a fair trial because it was moved to Schuyler County, which has few black residents, and thus led to an all-white jury. Mallett was black.The appeal also claimed Circuit Judge E. Richard Webber was biased because he sent a plaque in honour of the victim to the highway patrol and a letter of condolence to the patrolman´s widow.
Based on those issues, a circuit judge vacated Mallett´s murder conviction and sentence. The state Supreme Court later reinstated both and the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal of that decision, although three justices dissented.