A man who shot and killed two rural Missouri jailers nearly 23 years ago during a failed bid to help an inmate escape is set to be executed Tuesday evening.
Michael Tisius, 42, is scheduled to die by injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre for killing Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph County Jail on June 22, 2000.
Tisius’ lawyers have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, alleging in their appeals that a juror at a sentencing hearing was illiterate, in violation of Missouri law.
The Supreme Court has already turned aside another argument—that Tisius should be spared because he was just 19 at the time of the killings. A 2005 Supreme Court ruling bars executions of those under 18 when their crime occurred, but attorneys for Tisius argued that even at 19 when the killings occurred, Tisius’ should have his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole….