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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Missouri set to execute brain-damaged man who killed deputy

Missouri is set to execute the convicted killer of a sheriff's deputy on Tuesday over objections from his lawyers who say a sawmill accident decades ago cost him part of his brain and made him ineligible for the death penalty.

Cecil Clayton, 74, of southwest Missouri, is scheduled to die by lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT at a Missouri state prison. He would be the second inmate executed in Missouri this year and the 10th in the country.

Police were called in November 1996 on a complaint that Clayton, who had been arguing with his girlfriend, was trespassing. He shot Barry County Sheriff's Deputy Christopher Castetter in the head while the officer was in his patrol car.

Clayton's attorneys have argued that his intelligence dropped precipitously after a piece of wood was driven into his skull during a sawmill accident in 1972. Surgery was required, resulting in the loss of part of his frontal lobe.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The function of the frontal lobe involves the ability to project future consequences resulting from current actions, the choice between good and bad actions (or better and best), the override and suppression of socially unacceptable responses, and the determination of similarities and differences between things or events."

Wonder if the attorney should have used intelligence as a secondary defense and had a neurophysiologist and /or neuropsychiatrist give expert testimony as to the person's ability to reason between right and wrong, loss of impulse control and appreciation of consequences of actions.

Anonymous said...

Even more reason to execute him. He will always be a proven danger to others. Not sure how he got the "brain damage", but there's plenty of people out there with similar issues, and have never murdered anyone.

Anonymous said...

7:48 is on the money!

Anonymous said...

Diminished capacity. He should have been in a closed ward years ago. This one's on the community.

Anonymous said...

Just cause he's stupid doesn't negate the fact he shot the deputy.

Anonymous said...

Your brain damaged and I don't see anyone wanting to fry your butt