Benjamin Cole, 57, received a lethal injection at McAlester Penitentiary in the central United States, corrections officials said Thursday. He had been sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder of his nine-month-old daughter. According to prosecutors, he killed her to silence her before resuming a video game.
According to his lawyers, he has long suffered from “paranoid schizophrenia” and brain damage. His condition has deteriorated in recent years and he lived prior to his execution “in an almost catatonic state,” without bathing, walking or communicating, they recently explained.
The 12th execution of the year
However, the United States Supreme Court has prohibited the execution of convicts who do not understand why they are being punished. As the scheduled date for his execution approached, Benjamin Cole’s defenders therefore multiplied their resources to try to save him in vain.
The Oklahoma authorities responded that a doctor had deemed him fit for execution. The condemned man, a “messianic Jew”, had “intelligence to speak” but was silent with his lawyers because they did not understand “his extreme religiosity”, in particular they had written to the Supreme Court, which like the other courts refused to offer him a respite.
During his execution, Benjamin Cole prayed aloud unintelligibly, according to local reporters who served as witnesses.
This is the 12th execution this year in the United States and the fourth in the state of Oklahoma which, after a pause linked to doubts about the legality of its injection protocol, is planning numerous executions in the coming months.
Source: BFM TV
