Three quarters of American executions in 2015 involved cases of “crippling disabilities and uncertain guilt,” according to a report by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University. Saying that the 2015 executions revealed “a broken capital punishment system,” the report found that, “[o]f the 28 people executed [in 2015], 75% were mentally impaired or disabled, experienced extreme childhood trauma or abuse, or were of questionable guilt.” It said seven people who were executed suffered from serious intellectual impairment or brain injury, including Warren Hill, who even the state’s doctors agreed had intellectual disability, and Cecil Clayton, who lost 20% of his prefrontal cortex as a result of a sawmill accident. An additional seven suffered from serious mental illnesses. One, Andrew Brannan, was a decorated war veteran whom the Veterans Administration had classified as 100% disabled as a result of combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from his service in Vietnam. The report identified five more cases in which the executed prisoners had experienced extreme childhood trauma and abuse, and another two - Lester Bower and Brian Keith Terrell - in which it said the executed men “were potentially innocent.” The report also highlighted developments described in DPIC’s Year End Report, including the increasing isolation of death penalty use to a small number of jurisdictions. “Only a handful of outlier counties still impose the death penalty,” the report said, and an examination of practices in those counties often “reveals themes of overzealous prosecutors who often bend the rules, poorly performing defense lawyers, and a legacy of racial bias.” As a result, “these outlier counties tend to [also have] an unacceptable history of convicting the innocent and individuals with crippling mental impairments.” (Click image to enlarge.)

(“Death Penalty 2015 Year End Report,” Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, December 16, 2015.) See Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability, and Innocence.

Citation Guide