Lawyers for Federal Death-Row Prisoner Say Schizophrenia, Brain Injuries, and Dementia Have Left Him Incompetent to Be Executed

Lawyers for fed­er­al death-row pris­on­er Wesley Purkey, who is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on December 13, 2019, say he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed because he has Alzheimer’s dis­ease, schiz­o­phre­nia, and trau­mat­ic brain injuries that ​“ren­der him unable to ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son the United States seeks to execute him.” 

Purkey’s com­plaint, filed November 26, 2019 in fed­er­al dis­trict court in Washington, cat­a­logues a life­long his­to­ry of trau­ma and men­tal ill­ness that have con­tributed to his cur­rent con­di­tion. He expe­ri­enced sex­u­al, phys­i­cal, and emo­tion­al abuse begin­ning at age 5, and began using alco­hol and drugs as a child. He has been diag­nosed with numer­ous men­tal ill­ness­es, includ­ing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), bipo­lar dis­or­der, schiz­o­phre­nia, and depres­sion, and has mul­ti­ple doc­u­ment­ed sui­cide attempts. He has also suf­fered sev­er­al brain injuries result­ing in dam­age to his frontal lobe that ​“lim­its his capac­i­ty to reg­u­late his thoughts, emo­tion, and behav­ior, which has dete­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over time.” Now, his com­plaint says, he is also suf­fer­ing from demen­tia as a result of Alzheimer’s disease.

In February 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that exe­cut­ing a per­son who, because of con­di­tions such as men­tal ill­ness or demen­tia, ​“can­not ratio­nal­ly under­stand his pun­ish­ment, or the rea­son for it” con­sti­tutes cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Purkey’s com­plaint presents reports from two med­ical experts that his demen­tia and oth­er men­tal ill­ness­es inter­fere with his cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing, includ­ing his abil­i­ty to coop­er­ate with his attor­neys and to ratio­nal­ly under­stand why he is to be exe­cut­ed. ​“The under­ly­ing brain dam­age and men­tal ill­ness he has are long-stand­ing, irre­versible, and will con­tin­ue to dete­ri­o­rate as his demen­tia pro­gress­es,” wrote Dr. Bhushan S. Agharkar. Purkey believes that there is a con­spir­a­cy against him and that he is being exe­cut­ed because his legal efforts to improve prison con­di­tions have made him a ​“has­sle” to the government. 

“Wes Purkey is a severe­ly brain-dam­aged and men­tal­ly ill man who suf­fers from Alzheimer’s dis­ease,” Rebecca Woodman, one of Mr. Purkey’s attor­neys, said in a state­ment. ​“He has long accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the crime that put him on death row, but as his demen­tia has pro­gressed, he no longer has a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of why the gov­ern­ment plans to exe­cute him. He believes his exe­cu­tion is part of a large-scale con­spir­a­cy against him by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in retal­i­a­tion for his fre­quent chal­lenges to prison con­di­tions, and he believes his own lawyers are work­ing against him with­in this con­spir­a­cy.… The Eighth Amendment pro­hibits exe­cut­ing some­one who, like Wes, lacks a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the basis for his exe­cu­tion, and the court must not allow the exe­cu­tion to go for­ward unless and until it can con­firm that Mr. Purkey has this understanding.”

Purkey is one of five fed­er­al pris­on­ers who were giv­en exe­cu­tion dates in December 2019 and January 2020. Victims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers, the tri­al pros­e­cu­tor, and the tri­al judge oppose the exe­cu­tions of Daniel Lee, who received a death sen­tence after the more cul­pa­ble ring­leader of the mur­ders was sen­tenced to life. The vic­tims’ rel­a­tives and the Navajo Nation opposed the fed­er­al government’s deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty against Lezmond Mitchell for a dou­ble mur­der on Navajo trib­al lands. Alfred Bourgeois has a peti­tion pend­ing in fed­er­al dis­trict court seek­ing to bar his exe­cu­tion because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The Texas fed­er­al courts pre­vi­ous­ly denied that claim, using an unsci­en­tif­ic state-law stan­dard for assess­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty that the Supreme Court has since declared unconstitutional. 

Mitchell received a stay of exe­cu­tion on October 4 to per­mit a fed­er­al appeals court to review a claim regard­ing anti-Native American bias in his case. On November 20, 2019, a fed­er­al dis­trict court in Washington issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion putting the oth­er four exe­cu­tions on hold, find­ing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had act­ed out­side its legal author­i­ty by uni­lat­er­al­ly adopt­ing a fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. A fed­er­al appeals court upheld the injunc­tion on December 2 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to inter­vene on December 6. The fed­er­al exe­cu­tions would have been the first in the fed­er­al sys­tem since 2003.