Brandon Rhode (pic­tured) in Georgia received a sec­ond reprieve fol­low­ing his sui­cide attempt just pri­or to his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on September 21. His exe­cu­tion is now set for September 27 at 7 pm, despite ques­tions about his men­tal com­pe­ten­cy. Rhode has been diag­nosed as suf­fer­ing from organ­ic brain dam­age and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). According to experts, men­tal defi­cien­cies asso­ci­at­ed with FASD exac­er­bate the impair­ments asso­ci­at­ed with ado­les­cent brain imma­tu­ri­ty. Rhode was like­ly func­tion­ing at a younger lev­el than his chrono­log­i­cal age when he com­mit­ted the crime that sent him to death row. His lawyer, Brian Kammer, asked the Georgia Supreme Court to stop the exe­cu­tion alto­geth­er: ​“The stress and bar­bar­i­ty of his present sit­u­a­tion, cou­pled with his long­stand­ing depres­sion and men­tal ill­ness, has result­ed in Brandon Rhode now expe­ri­enc­ing dis­so­cia­tive episodes as his mind tries unsuc­cess­ful­ly to cope with his cur­rent phys­i­cal con­di­tion.” Rhode was rushed to the hos­pi­tal after slash­ing his arms and neck on the day before his orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled exe­cu­tion. The case rais­es some of the con­cerns regard­ing the exe­cu­tion of Teresa Lewis in Virginia. Lewis was assessed as bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled with an IQ of 72. Gov. McDonnell refused to grant her clemen­cy and she was exe­cut­ed on Sept. 23. 

(R. Cook, B. Rankin, ​“Triple mur­der­er’s exe­cu­tion stayed until Monday,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 25, 2010; see also ​“USA: Cruel, inhu­man, degrad­ing,” Amnesty International, September 24, 2010). See Intellectual Disability and Mental Illness.

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