OK-CADP Statement in Response to Oklahoma’s Execution of Death Row Prisoner Richard Fairchild

Oklahoma City – On Thursday, November 17, at 1024 a.m., the State of Oklahoma executed death row prisoner Richard Fairchild.

The clemency petition submitted from Mr. Fairchild’s attorneys can be studied here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JIXABujPBYfAhS-sO76a6rkBflnGMtuK/view

In the petition, lawyers stated that Mr. Fairchild was raised in an extremely abusive home riddled by alcohol and substance abuse. He had significant brain damage due to the repeated head trauma he received as an amateur, teenage boxer. In addition, evidence of organic brain damage –- a factor the United States Supreme Court has deemed crucial in a death penalty case – was never explored or presented by Mr. Fairchild’s original attorneys.

Regarding this execution, Rev. Don Heath, chair of the Oklahoma Coalition to abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP) made the following statement:

“We shouldn’t have to hold up signs on the road that say ‘Don’t Kill the Mentally Ill’ and ‘Stop Executing Veterans.’ This is the fourth person with mental illness and brain damage that the State has executed in 2022. No end is in sight. We have 23 more executions scheduled in the next 26 months. Oklahoma is ruled by people with hard hearts. Richard Fairchild was a beloved child of God. I hope that he is now at peace.”

The CapitolBeatOK Staff Report concerning the appeal for a stay of execution can be read here:

Pat McGuigan’s news report (from October) about the move to execute death row inmates whose competency to face execution was cast into doubt can be reviewed here:

Disclosure: Patrick B. McGuigan is Publisher, Editor and Founder of CapitolBeatok.com, an independent, non-partisan and locally-managed news service based in Oklahoma City. He is the author of three books and co-editor of seven, including ‘Crime and Punishment in Modern America.’ McGuigan is a dues-paying member of the Oklahoma Coalition Against the Death Penalty (OK-CADP).