Oklahoma denies clemency for severely mentally ill death row inmate barricaded in his cell

Benjamin Cole was sentenced to death for murdering his nine-month-old daughter

Oklahoma’s pardon and parole board voted against recommending clemency for Benjamin Cole, 57, who was sentenced to death for the brutal 2002 killing of his nine-month-old daughter Brianna.

The board voted 4-to1 against the reprieve petition, meaning Cole will likely be executed in late October via lethal injection.

Family members of the baby’s mother said they supported Oklahoma pursuing the death penalty against Cole during the clemency hearing.

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

Benjamin Cole (Oklahoma State Dept. of Corrections)

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

State officials also celebrated the decision, and said it was right to proceed with Cole’s execution.

“I am grateful that the Board denied Cole’s request for executive clemency,” Oklahoma attorney general John O’Connor said on Tuesday in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the other members of Brianna’s family.”

Cole’s attorneys don’t dispute that the 57-year-old horrifically killed his daughter, breaking her spine and tearing her aorta.

Rather, they argue the man is severely mentally ill, with a past diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and a growing lesion on his brain, and thus unfit for execution. They told the parole board that he has refused medical attention, ignored personal hygiene, hoards food, can no longer walk, and lives in a near-catatonic state in a darkened cell with little contact with staff or fellow inmates.

“The evidence of Mr. Cole’s severe mental illness presented during today’s clemency hearing reinforces the need for a full trial on his competency,” Tom Hird, Cole’s attorney, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Civil rights advocates like the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty criticised the board’s clemency denial.

“Two of the five Pardon and Parole Board members voted in 2015 for clemency for Ben Cole. Seven years later, Mr. Cole’s mental condition has sharply deteriorated, “Reverend Don Heath, OK-CADP chair, said in a statement to The Independent. “A lesion in his brain has grown. He is no longer capable of communicating with his attorneys. He is no longer capable of recognizing that he is being punished.”

Attorney General O’Connor has pushed back against this characterisation of Cole.

“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,” Mr O’Connor continued in his statement. “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.’”

Under Supreme Court precedent, it is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment to execute people with intellectual disability, though people with severe intellectual challenges and mental health issues are frequently executed nonetheless.

Despite the board’s recommendation, Cole’s execution could still be stopped, as a county judge is considering a trial to determine whether the man is fit to be killed.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.