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Eight Executions Set for Next 16 Days Raising Issues of Mental Illness

WASHINGTON - December 2 - Eight executions are scheduled to take place in the next 16 days, including the executions of at least three people with severe mental illness and three people whose lawyers performed abysmally at trial. Five are scheduled during a nine-day period in Texas, and two are set for Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day.

"The scheduled executions in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia follow a disturbing but familiar pattern," said Brian Roberts, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "At a time when Americans are beginning to take a hard look at who is sentenced to death, these states are failing to meet even the lowest constitutional bar in carrying out executions. Simply put, people with severe mental illness or ineffective lawyers should not be eligible for execution in any humane and civilized society."

Among those scheduled for execution:

***Ivan Murphy, Dec. 4, Texas. Murphy, who is partly Native American, is scheduled to be executed for the death of Lula Mae Denning of Grayson County. Murphy was convicted with the help of coerced testimony from a jailhouse informant who later recanted. At trial, Murphy's lawyer neglected to call significant material witnesses, failed to hire independent experts to challenge the prosecution's theory of forensic evidence and failed to object when the prosecutor made highly prejudicial comments regarding his client.

***Robbie Lyons, Dec. 5, North Carolina. Lyons, who is black, is scheduled to be executed for the death of Stephen Stafford in Forsyth County. Lyons suffers from bipolar disorder and anti-social personality disorder and experienced horrific physical abuse as a child. In addition to enduring frequent, violent beatings, he was regularly given alcohol beginning at age four, marijuana at age seven and crack cocaine at age 10.

***Kevin Zimmerman, Dec. 10, Texas. Zimmerman, who is white, is scheduled for execution on International Human Rights Day for the murder of Leslie Gilbert Hooks, Jr. in Jefferson County. He has a history of severe mental health issues, including paranoid personality disorder, trauma due to a skull fracture, an IQ that is close to mental retardation and a history of child abuse, neglect and abandonment. In addition, he suffered from abysmal legal representation; although diagnostic tests showed he was incompetent to stand trial, his defense counsel never requested his mental health records at trial.

***Eddie Albert Crawford, Dec. 10, Georgia. Crawford, who is white, also is scheduled for execution on International Human Rights Day for the murder of his 29-month-old niece. Crawford, who is a Vietnam veteran, was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. His defense was denied adequate funding by the state of Georgia to hire medical and other experts.

***James Edward Reid, Dec. 18, Virginia. Reid, who is black, is scheduled to be executed for the murder of Annie Lester in Christianburg. Reid suffers from longstanding epileptic seizures that resulted from a severe brain injury sustained as a youth as a result of a car accident. Reid's lawyer entered a plea of "no contest" in his client's behalf before realizing the weakness of the prosecution's case and later failed to aggressively pursue a defense based on the mitigating circumstances of Reid's background.

Also scheduled for execution in December are Richard Duncan, a gay white man, set for Dec. 3 in Texas; Billy Vickers, a white man, set for Dec. 9 in Texas; and Bobby Lee Hines, a white man, set for Dec. 11 in Texas.

Last month, two executions in North Carolina and one in Georgia involved people with severe mental illness. Just over ten percent of the approximately 3,500 people on death rows in the United States suffer from severe mental illness, and one out of every six people incarcerated in the United States is said to be mentally ill, according to leading mental health and human rights organizations.

As of Dec. 2, 62 people have been executed in the United States in 2003. In 2002, a total of 71 people were executed in this country. NCADP is urging its members and supporters to visit its Legislative Action Center at www.ncadp.org to protest the eight executions set between Dec. 3 and Dec. 18.