Serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin executed in Missouri

BONNE TERRE, Mo. - Missouri has executed Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist killer who targeted blacks and Jews during a multistate crime rampage from 1977 to 1980.

Franklin, 63, was put to death for the 1977 sniper killing of Gerald Gordon at a suburban St. Louis synagogue. The U.S. Supreme Court early Wednesday upheld a federal appeals court decisions overturning stays granted Tuesday by federal judges in Jefferson City, Mo., and St. Louis.

Mike O'Connell, of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the execution got the final OK from Gov. Jay Nixon at 6:05 a.m. By this time, Franklin was already strapped to a table in the state's death chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, ready for the injection. He received a lethal injection at 6:07 a.m.

The execution was the first in Missouri using a single drug, pentobarbital. Three media witnesses said Franklin did not seem to express pain. He did not make any final written statement and did not speak a word in the death chamber.

Whether the use of pentobarbital constituted cruel and unusual punishment was among the issues raised in the request for a stay filed by Franklin and other plaintiffs.