Michael Anthony Taylor Petition

We the undersigned ask Missouri Governor Matt Blunt to commute Michael Anthony Taylor's sentence of death to life without parole. Michael is very remorseful and our desire for commutation is in no way meant to minimize the seriousness of this crime or the trauma felt by Ann Harrison's family and friends. The prosecutors office in Kansas City had a practice of seeking life without parole when a defendant pled guilty but only in Michaels and his co-defendants case did Jackson County not follow this practice in the 12 years Al Riederer was Prosecuting Attorney. There were more repulsive murder-rape cases involving multiple victims in which the same prosecutor's office agreed to guilty pleas leading to life without parole, but in those cases either the accused were white or the decedents were black. Eighty percent of the men executed in Missouri this past year and those men most likely to receive execution dates this year are African Americans. Because of this racially discriminatory practice of applying the death penalty in Michael Taylors case, we believe that the state should not proceed with the scheduled execution.