MCALESTER — Attorneys for an Oklahoma death row inmate are asking a choose to order competency proceedings as a substitute of ready for a jail warden to decide.
James Chandler Ryder, 60, was sentenced to death for the 1999 death of Daisy Hallum and to life in jail with out parole for the 1999 death of Sam Hallum.
Court data and former News-Capital articles report the Hallums have been discovered lifeless at their property on April 9, 1999, with investigators believing a shotgun was utilized in Sam Hallum’s death and that Daisy Hallum was bludgeoned to death.
Ryder, from Pittsburg County, was accused of their deaths following a dispute in Longtown. He reportedly lived on the Hallum property for a while earlier than the killings.
Defense attorneys requested a Pittsburg County choose to conduct an evidentiary hearing into the competency of Ryder and order Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Jim Farris to name to consideration to the district legal professional of Pittsburg County that Ryder is “insane” and competency proceedings ought to begin.
Ryder is the third inmate this 12 months to make an analogous request in Pittsburg County District Court.
Wade Lay was granted a competency trial anticipated to start out in March 2023. Benjamin Cole’s request was denied earlier than his Oct. 20 execution.
Ryder’s attorneys said they notified Farris of Ryder’s current psychological situation to Farris on Sept. 13 through e-mail and postal mail and requested a “prompt response given his scheduled execution.”
The attorneys adopted up with Farris on Oct. 7 and stated if a solution was not given by Oct. 19, judicial treatment could be sought.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections General Council Kari Hawkins’ response Oct. 12 stating the company acquired the request and that Farris would give the matter “careful consideration.”
“I am advising him to refrain from making a decision in haste in order to meet an unsolicited deadline,” Hawkins wrote within the response. “Mr. Ryder’s execution date is June 1, 2023. While we do not intent to be dilatory, we do intend to exercise due diligence. Warden Farris will take whatever time he needs in the coming weeks or months to properly take this matter under advisement. Thus, any representations to the court based upon his alleged failure to meet the Oct. 19, 2022, deadline would be inappropriate and a misrepresentation of fact.”
Ryder’s attorneys argue he cannot wait “weeks or months” for a response from Farris as competency hearings are “complex, fact-intensive inquiries.”
Attorneys argue Ryder suffers from extreme, recognized psychological diseases courting again to 2000 with quite a few psychologists and specialists ruling the person incompetent all through the years with the newest analysis in August.
Nearly 200 pages of documentation was filed by Ryder’s containing notes and different paperwork from psychologists who’ve seen Ryder.
Following an August 2022 examination, Barry M. Crown, Ph. D, wrote Ryder “evidences the signs of a major mental illness.”
“He is emaciated and disheveled with pressured speech and cognitive problems with concentration, attention, memory and executive functions.” Crown wrote. “He expresses disorganized and unfocused responses with loose associations and delusional fixations.”
Crown stated his medical opinion was Ryder “is presently unable to demonstrate a rational understanding of the fact they he will be executed” and recognized Ryder with Schizophrenic Spectrum Disorder.
“In terms familiar to the law, Mr. Ryder is insane,” Crown wrote. “His mental power has been wholly obliterated. He is unable to comprehend or process, in any fashion, the reason he is to be executed and that the execution is imminent.”
No response has been filed by the state of Oklahoma on the time this story was being procuded.
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