ReportWire

Tag: McAlester

  • Oklahoma prepares to execute man for 3-year-old’s killing

    Oklahoma prepares to execute man for 3-year-old’s killing

    [ad_1]

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma plans to execute a man Thursday for the torture slaying of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son in 1993.

    Richard Stephen Fairchild, who turns 63 on Thursday, is set to receive a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Fairchild, an ex-Marine, was convicted of killing Adam Broomhall after the child wet the bed. Prosecutors say Fairchild held both sides of his body against a scorching furnace, then threw him into a table. The child never regained consciousness and died later that day.

    “The method of Adam’s murder can only be described as torture,” prosecutors from the Oklahoma attorney general’s office wrote to the state’s Pardon and Parole Board, which voted 4-1 last month against recommending clemency for Fairchild.

    Attorneys for Fairchild argue that he was abused as a child, is mentally ill and is remorseful for his actions.

    “As Richard Fairchild’s brain has deteriorated, he has descended into psychosis, a fact well-documented in his prison records,” Emma Rolls, one of Fairchild’s attorneys, said in a statement to the board. “Yet 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 execution would be the seventh since Oklahoma resumed carrying out the death penalty in October 2021. It would be the 16th execution in the U.S. this year, including one in Texas and one in Arizona on Wednesday, up from last year’s three-decade low of 11. An execution was also scheduled for later Thursday in Alabama.

    Also Thursday, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to rule on a request from death row inmate Richard Glossip for a hearing to determine whether a co-defendant sought to recant his testimony that Glossip hired him to kill motel owner Barry Van Treese. Glossip is also seeking what his attorneys allege is evidence that was withheld by prosecutors, including interviews with witnesses. The court rejected a similar request by Glossip earlier this month.

    The U.S. has seen waning support in recent years for the death penalty across all political parties. About 6 in 10 Americans favor the death penalty, according to the General Social Survey, a major trends survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. While a majority continue to express support for the death penalty, the share has declined steadily since the 1990s, when nearly three-quarters were in favor.

    ———

    More of AP’s coverage of executions can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/executions

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Oklahoma to execute man for 2002 killing of infant daughter

    Oklahoma to execute man for 2002 killing of infant daughter

    [ad_1]

    McALESTER, Okla. — A 57-year-old Oklahoma man is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday for killing his 9-month-old daughter in 2002, despite claims by his attorneys that he is mentally ill and not competent to be executed.

    Attorneys for Benjamin Cole do not dispute that he killed Brianna Cole by forcibly bending the infant backward, breaking her spine and tearing her aorta, but argue that he is both severely mentally ill and that he has a growing lesion on his brain that has continued to worsen while he has been in prison.

    Cole has refused medical attention and ignored his personal hygiene, hoarding food and living in a darkened cell with little to no communication with staff or fellow prisoners, his attorneys told the state’s Pardon and Parole Board last month during a clemency hearing.

    “His condition has continued to decline over the course of this year,” Cole’s attorney Katrina Conrad-Legler said.

    The panel voted 4-1 to deny clemency, and a district judge earlier this month determined Cole was competent to be executed. A last-minute appeal filed with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt his execution was denied on Wednesday.

    Cole has a lesion on his brain, which is separate from his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, that has grown in size in recent years and affects the part of his brain that deals with problem solving, movement and social interaction, Conrad-Legler has said.

    Attorneys for the state and members of the victim’s family told the board that Cole’s symptoms of mental illness are exaggerated and that the brutal nature of his daughter’s killing merit his execution.

    Assistant Attorney General Tessa Henry said Cole killed his daughter because he was infuriated that her crying from her crib interrupted his playing of a video game.

    “He is not severely mentally ill,” said another prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Ashley Willis. “There is nothing in the constitution or jurisprudence that prevents his execution.”

    Prosecutors noted that the infant had numerous injuries consistent with a history of abuse and that Cole had previously served time in prison in California for abusing another child.

    Board members also heard emotional testimony from family members of the slain child’s mother, who urged the board to reject clemency.

    “The first time I got to see Brianna in person was lying in a casket,” said Donna Daniel, the victim’s aunt. “Do you know how horrible it is to see a 9-month-old baby in a casket?

    “This baby deserves justice. Our family deserves justice.”

    Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said in a statement that he is confident Cole is sufficiently competent to be executed.

    “Although his attorneys claim Cole is mentally ill to the point of catatonia, the fact is that Cole fully cooperated with a mental evaluation in July of this year,” O’Connor said. “The evaluator, who was not hired by Cole or the State, found Cole to be competent to be executed and that ‘Mr. Cole does not currently evidence any substantial, overt signs of mental illness, intellectual impairment, and/or neurocognitive impairment.’”

    Cole’s execution would be the sixth since Oklahoma resumed carrying out the death penalty in October 2021.

    [ad_2]

    Source link