The scheduled execution of a black death row inmate is drawing an outcry from activists.
Advocates for Andre Cole argue he was unfairly sentenced because African-Americans were excluded from the jury for his St. Louis County trial.
Cole was convicted of killing a man in 1998 in a fit of anger over child support payments.
Members of the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty called on Governor Jay Nixon to stop the execution.
The activists have also urged Nixon to appoint a board to look at concerns of racial bias in the state’s jury selection process.