Oklahoma Denies Clemency to Death-Row Prisoner Richard Fairchild Who Suffers from Brain Damage, Hallucinations, and Delusions

In a 4 – 1 vote, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied clemen­cy to Richard Fairchild, the third of 25 peo­ple the state sched­uled for exe­cu­tion between August 2022 and December 2024. Fairchild’s attor­neys argued that he was rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al by incom­pe­tent coun­sel who nev­er pre­sent­ed evi­dence of Fairchild’s severe child­hood abuse and of his repeat­ed trau­mat­ic brain injuries. Fairchild’s clemen­cy peti­tion also detailed the debil­i­tat­ing effects of his seri­ous men­tal ill­ness and organ­ic brain damage.

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Conner stat­ed that the parole board made the right deci­sion because a jury decid­ed that Fairchild’s exe­cu­tion was a ​“just and appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment.” One of Fairchild’s attor­neys, Assistant Federal Public Defender Emma Rolls, respond­ed to the deci­sion by say­ing that ​“despite hav­ing lost touch with real­i­ty, Richard remains remorse­ful for his crime and con­tin­ues to have an unblem­ished prison record. There is no prin­ci­pled rea­son for Oklahoma to execute him.” 

Fairchild’s request for clemen­cy focused on the mul­ti­ple head trau­mas he suf­fered through­out his child­hood and ado­les­cence at the hands of his abu­sive father and as a teenaged ama­teur box­er. According to his clemen­cy peti­tion, as an adult, Fairchild also suf­fered five sep­a­rate severe head injuries that were doc­u­ment­ed in his mil­i­tary and medical records.

Evidence of Fairchild’s organ­ic brain dam­age was par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant because of the facts of his crime. Fairchild was con­vict­ed in 1996 for the mur­der of his girlfriend’s three-year-old son while Fairchild was intox­i­cat­ed. Evidence of trau­mat­ic brain injury could have explained how drugs or alco­hol inter­act­ed with his dam­aged brain and made him more reac­tive to minor provocations.

Fairchild was rep­re­sent­ed at tri­al by John Albert, who was even­tu­al­ly sus­pend­ed from the prac­tice of law because of his sub­stance abuse. Even though a psy­chi­a­trist who eval­u­at­ed Fairchild pri­or to his tri­al doc­u­ment­ed evi­dence of ​“severe organ­ic brain syn­drome,” Albert did not dis­cuss the issue with the psy­chi­a­trist before tri­al and did not ques­tion the psy­chi­a­trist on organ­ic brain dam­age at tri­al. Instead, he explained Fairchild’s behav­ior as sole­ly being induced by substance abuse.

The clemen­cy peti­tion argues that Albert’s fail­ure to intro­duce known evi­dence of Fairchild’s severe brain dam­age was a decid­ing fac­tor in his death sen­tence. A juror’s affi­davit sup­ports this con­tention. The juror stat­ed that if she had been aware of Fairchild’s phys­i­cal brain dam­age, she would not have vot­ed for death. 

According to a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal assess­ment and prison med­ical records, Fairchild’s brain dam­age is accom­pa­nied by severe men­tal ill­ness. In sev­er­al assess­ments span­ning sev­er­al years, Fairchild was found to be ​“florid­ly psy­chot­ic,” dis­con­nect­ed from real­i­ty, and suf­fer­ing from delu­sions and hallucinations.

The peti­tion ends by not­ing Fairchild’s remorse for the crime and request­ing that the board ​“con­sid­er the cir­cum­stances of how his child­hood, his brain dam­age, men­tal ill­ness, and sub­stance abuse con­tributed to the events that took place that night.”

The Pardon and Parole Board vot­ed to deny clemen­cy on October 13, 2022, and Fairchild is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on November 17. His exe­cu­tion date is also his 63^rd birthday.