MISSOURI (USA): BRAIN-DAMAGED COP-KILLER EXECUTED

March 17, 2015: Cecil Clayton, 74, White, was executed by lethal injection beginning at 9:13 p.m. at a prison in Bonne Terre. He was pronounced dead at 9:21 p.m.  
Clayton's attorneys argued that he suffers from lingering effects of a 1972 sawmill accident in which a piece of wood shot through his skull. Surgeons removed about 8 % of Clayton's brain, including 1/5 of the frontal lobe that governs impulse control and judgment. His lawyers say Clayton has an IQ of 71 and that psychiatric evaluations indicate he doesn't understand the significance of his scheduled execution or the reasons for it. Clayton's 11th-hour appeals delayed his execution for several hours.
On Saturday, the Missouri Supreme Court denied 4 to 3 his stay of execution, declaring that he is competent to be executed. None of the U.S. Supreme Court justices accepted his claims arguments for a stay based on his brain injury. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were in favor of granting a stay of execution but were outvoted.
The four justices from the liberal wing did say they would have granted a stay based on his claim that Missouri's secrecy-shrouded process for obtaining the lethal dose of pentobarbital could lead to an unconstitutional death.
Clayton was convicted in the Nov. 27, 1996 shooting death of Sheriff's Deputy Chris Castetter who had responded to a domestic dispute involving Clayton.
Clayton's lawyers had said that in the 1970s he suffered a sawmill accident in which he lost 20% of his frontal lobe, resulting in mental instability. He did not understand the shooting and the death of Castetter, his attorneys argued in last-minute court filings. Physicians are cited in court papers as saying Clayton suffered from a "delusional disorder."
The filings also cited comments from fellow prisoners that Clayton had trouble doing such basic tasks as using a telephone and purchasing supplies from the prison commissary. Clayton had been scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. local time. The Supreme Court issued its decision around 8:30 p.m..
Clayton becomes the 2nd inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri and the 82nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989. Clayton becomes the 10th inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1404th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (Sources: Los Angeles Times & Rick Halperin, 17/03/2015)