• Urgent Action

Urgent Action: MAN WITH MENTAL DISABILITY FACING EXECUTION (USA: UA 78.22)

September 5, 2022

Benjamin Cole, aged 57, is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma on October 20, 2022. He was sentenced to death in December 2004 for killing his nine-month-old daughter in December 2002. He has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and brain damage. Throughout the years his lawyers have described an individual who has been unable to assist them in his case, both at trial and during appeals. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board is due to hold a clemency hearing and vote on the case on September 27, 2022. We urge the members of the Board to recommend to Governor Kevin Stitt that he commute Benjamin Cole’s death sentence.

TAKE ACTION:
  1. Please take action as-soon-as possible. This Urgent Action expires on September 27, 2022.
  2. Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to the government official listed below. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.
  3. Click here to let us know the actions you took on Urgent Action 78.22. It’s important to report because we share the total number with the officials we are trying to persuade and the people we are trying to help.
CONTACT INFORMATION Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board 2915 N Classen Blvd #405 Oklahoma City, OK 73106, USA SAMPLE LETTER Dear Members of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, Benjamin Cole is due to be executed in Oklahoma on October 20, 2022, for the murder of his baby daughter in December 2002. You are due to consider his petition for clemency on September 27, 2022. Lawyers representing Benjamin Cole have long had serious doubts about his mental competence – to stand trial, to assist in his appeals, and in recent years for execution – arising from a long-standing psychosocial (mental) disability. Since the outset of this case, they have described a client who has been unable to communicate in a rational and coherent manner with them. In 2008, Benjamin Cole was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and over the years on death row his condition is reported to have deteriorated and to have remained untreated. Additionally, according to a physician who is also a neuroradiologist, a lesion on his brain, first spotted in a scan in 2004 could be exacerbating his mental disability and explain his deteriorating motor functions, possible Parkinsonism, and need for a wheelchair. I appeal to you to recommend that Governor Kevin Stitt commute Benjamin Cole’s death sentence. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME] ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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