Entries tagged with “James Ryder”
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,May 29, 2024
Recent Decisions in Capital Cases Reflect Growing Understanding of How Serious Mental Illness Affects Behavior and Culpability
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the impact of mental illness is keenly felt on death row: at least two in five people executed have a documented serious mental illness, and research suggests that many more death-sentenced prisoners are undiagnosed. A national majority, 60% of Americans, opposes executing people with serious mental illness. In the past two decades, science and medicine have contributed to a much better understanding of how serious mental illness, which refers to…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Apr 02, 2024
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.”…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Jan 08, 2024
Oklahoma Court Stays Scheduled Execution Pending Evaluation of Seriously Mentally Ill Prisoner
On December 22, 2023, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued a 100-day stay of execution to carry out a mental competency hearing for James Ryder, who was scheduled to be executed on February 1, 2024. Mr. Ryder’s attorneys have argued for years that he is not competent to face execution, citing long standing mental illness that has worsened throughout his incarceration. Several psychologists have diagnosed Mr. Ryder with paranoid schizophrenia and concluded he is not competent to face…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Executions Overview
,Jan 24, 2023
Oklahoma Court Grants Attorney General’s Motion to Slow State’s Execution Spree
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) has reset the state’s execution schedule, slowing down the pace at which the 25-person execution spree it authorized in July 2022 would move…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Mental Illness
,Representation
,Native Americans
,May 03, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 26, 2021
NEWS (4/29/21) — Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has vacated the convictions and death sentences of two more death-row prisoners who, the court found, had committed their offenses against Native Americans on tribal lands. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark tribal sovereignty ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court found that the murders for which Benjamin Robert Cole Sr. and James Chandler Ryder had been…