Next up in Missouri’s death penalty queue: Allen Nicklasson

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Missouri officials on Wednesday morning overcame a last-minute objection from a federal judge regarding the planned execution of Joseph Franklin and killed the murder convict with a lethal dose of pentobarbital.

The Missouri Department of Corrections’ execution protocol has come under scrutiny from several different directions, delaying several planned executions including Franklin’s and Allen Nicklasson’s.

Nicklasson received the death penalty for his role in the 1994 killing of Excelsior Springs resident Richard Drummond. Nicklasson, along with Dennis Skillicorn, were referred to as the “Good Samaritan Killers” for slaying Drummond after he stopped and offered to help the two men with their broken-down car.

Nicklasson later said Skillicorn had nothing to do with Drummond’s death; Nicklasson said he took Drummond to a field a half-mile away from the car and shot the businessman who hadn’t attempted to flee. His account was written down as part of a clemency petition to get Skillicorn off death row. It didn’t work – Skillicorn was killed by the state in 2009.

Missouri was set to do the same to Nicklasson on October 23, but Gov. Jay Nixon put a halt to the execution when the European Union protested the state’s plan to use propofol, a sedative largely made in Germany. The EU, historically opposed to the death penalty, threatened to limit the export of propofol to the United States, where it is often used in routine human and veterinary therapies.

Now Nicklasson is set to die on December 11, probably the same way Franklin did on Wednesday morning, barring future legal challenges.