BBC
Image caption,
Kevin Johnson pictured with daughter Khorry Ramey and grandson

A 19-year-old US woman will not be able to see her father executed, after a judge upheld a Missouri law that states she is too young.

Kevin Johnson faces execution on Tuesday for the killing of a police officer in 2005, when he was 19.

He requested that his daughter, Khorry Ramey, attend.

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed an emergency motion on her behalf, arguing that the state law violated her constitutional rights.

They said that the age requirement in the Missouri law - barring anyone under the age of 21 from witnessing an execution - served no safety purpose.

Johnson, 37, has been in prison since Ms Ramey was two years old.

The pair built a bond through visits, phone calls, letters and emails. She brought her newborn son to prison to meet his grandfather last month.

"I'm heartbroken that I won't be able to be with my dad in his last moments," Ms Ramey said in a statement, adding that her father had worked hard to rehabilitate himself in prison, and that she was praying for the Missouri governor to grant him clemency.

Johnson was convicted of the fatal shooting of Missouri police officer William McEntee, a father of three.

Lawyers for Johnson have filed appeals seeking to spare his life. Although they do not challenge his guilt, they argue that racism played a role in the death penalty sentence.

It's better for her Sanity, people usually think they're strong untill uncontrolled happen.

He was just 19, they couldn't temper justice with mercy? Some serial killers are serving life sentences, some who committed horrific murders were given life sentences with the possibility of parole. One teenage boy that stabbed his classmate over 150 times was given 25 years in prison. Another one clubbed his girlfriend to death and he served 15 out of 25 years but this teenager gets sentenced to death because he's black? American justice system is just messed up.