Following Stay of Execution, Oklahoma Court Finds Death-Sentenced Prisoner Incompetent to Be Executed Due to Serious Mental Illness

On March 28, Judge Michael Hogan of Pittsburg County ruled that James Ryder is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed after a hear­ing where experts estab­lished Mr. Ryder’s seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. “[We are] relieved the court reached the only log­i­cal con­clu­sion… James has no ratio­nal under­stand­ing of why Oklahoma plans to exe­cute him,” said Mr. Ryder’s attor­ney, Emma Rolls, fol­low­ing the deci­sion. ​“James has suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia for near­ly 40 years and has lit­tle con­nec­tion to objec­tive real­i­ty.” Mr. Ryder, 62, was the first sched­uled exe­cu­tion of 2024 in Oklahoma before the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay in December, order­ing the hear­ing because Mr. Ryder had ​“raised sub­stan­tial doubt as to his com­pe­ten­cy to be executed.” 

Over two days, Judge Hogan heard sub­stan­tial evi­dence of Mr. Ryder’s delu­sions. Mr. Ryder believes that the exe­cu­tion will only kill his body, while his soul ​“will go into an alien body which will be bet­ter than a human body.” He told a psy­chol­o­gist that he is ​“like­ly the only het­ero­sex­u­al male on earth” and that the U.S. gov­ern­ment will col­lapse, enabling him to go to Russia and ful­fill his duty to ​“raise a het­ero­sex­u­al son.” Prison records doc­u­ment­ed over twen­ty years of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and trou­bling behav­ior such as hoard­ing, eat­ing rot­ten food, and ​“not show­er­ing for years.” Judge Hogan wrote that he could ​“go on ad nau­se­um dis­cussing the irra­tional thought process­es of Mr. Ryder but that is not need­ed” to find him incompetent. 

The state had argued that Mr. Ryder was com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, and a spokesper­son for Attorney General Gentner Drummond said after the deci­sion that Oklahoma ​“will con­tin­ue work­ing to restore com­pe­ten­cy so jus­tice can be served.” However, Ms. Rolls urged the state to ​“cease any fur­ther efforts” to car­ry out the exe­cu­tion, as Mr. Ryder’s con­di­tion ​“has dete­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the years and will only con­tin­ue to wors­en.” Even the war­den super­vis­ing Mr. Ryder, Jim Farris, has expressed con­cerns about Mr. Ryder’s com­pe­ten­cy; he wrote in a 2022 let­ter to the dis­trict attorney’s office that Mr. Ryder ​“may have become insane dur­ing his incarceration.”

The Supreme Court has held that a pris­on­er is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed if he does not have a ​“ratio­nal under­stand­ing” of the rea­son for his exe­cu­tion. That deter­mi­na­tion focus­es on a spe­cif­ic peri­od of time before the exe­cu­tion, so a per­son who is found incom­pe­tent can in the­o­ry be lat­er found com­pe­tent and exe­cut­ed. However, the process of ​“restor­ing com­pe­ten­cy” rais­es seri­ous eth­i­cal and prac­ti­cal con­cerns for lawyers and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als. For pris­on­ers with severe men­tal dis­or­ders, a peri­od of lucid­i­ty is often the excep­tion, not the norm. Most states allow the forcible med­ica­tion of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers to address safe­ty con­cerns, includ­ing with psy­chotrop­ic drugs, while non-incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple typ­i­cal­ly have the right to refuse treat­ment. And the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics pro­hibits physi­cian par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions, includ­ing ​“treat­ing a con­demned pris­on­er who has been declared incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed for the pur­pose of restor­ing com­pe­tence.” The Code affirms that the med­ical pro­fes­sion is ​“ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing life when there is hope of doing so.”