Entries tagged with “Richard Fairchild”
State & Federal Info
Military
,Nov 10, 2023
A Veterans Day Review: Uneven Progress Understanding the Role of Military Service in Capital Crimes
In 2015, DPIC’s Battle Scars report brought worldwide attention to the issue of military veterans on death row. DPIC found approximately 300 veterans incarcerated under a sentence of death, representing at least 10% of death row, and many more who had been executed. Since that report, research and understanding about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), substance use disorders, and mental illness among veterans has only grown. A 2023 survey of members of the…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Nov 14, 2022
Week of Four Scheduled Executions Highlights Continued Concerns With the Use of the Death Penalty
The four executions scheduled for the week of November 17th highlight current trends in executions and death sentencing and the continued use of the death penalty against vulnerable populations. The prisoners scheduled to be executed by four states have raised a number of issues, including prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, discrimination against Black jurors, judicial override of jury decisionmaking, serious mental illness, and brain damage. Stephen Barbee (Texas…
Issues
Oct 17, 2022
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…
Issues
Oct 05, 2022
With Execution Looming, Judge Denies Competency Hearing for Oklahoma Death-Row Prisoner Benjamin Cole
A Pittsburg County, Oklahoma judge has denied a competency hearing for death-row prisoner Benjamin Cole (pictured), clearing the path for his execution on October 20, 2022. In a three-page ruling issued on October 4, 2022, Judge Mike Hogan conclusorily asserted that Cole’s lawyers had not met the required “substantial threshold showing of insanity” to receive a jury trial on his competency to be executed. The ruling asserted that the expert reports submitted by the parties “are conflicting”…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Jun 13, 2022
Oklahoma Attorney General Requests 25 Execution Dates Despite Independent Investigation and Claims of Innocence, Serious Mental Illness, and Brain Damage
Oklahoma state prosecutors are pushing to schedule 25 executions over approximately two years, after a federal judge denied death-row prisoners’ challenge to the state’s controversial lethal-injection protocol. On June 10, 2022, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set execution dates for 25 of the 28 prisoners who were parties to the execution-protocol challenge. The request came just four days after Judge Stephen Friot’s ruling that the…