Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst ... 567
Results 61 to 62 of 62

Thread: Benjamin Robert Cole, Sr. - Oklahoma Execution - October 20, 2022

  1. #61
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Press conference on the execution in which Brianna's uncle and aunt went off on the state for taking 20 years to execute him.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI0t...lsa%7CChannel2
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  2. #62
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    At execution, victim's family compares baby's murder to the punishment: 'He got off easy'

    By Andrea Eger
    Tulsa World

    McALESTER — Benjamin Robert Cole Sr. was executed by lethal injection Thursday for the 2002 murder of his 9-month-old daughter, Brianna.

    Cole, 57, had been on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary since 2004, when a Rogers County jury convicted him of first-degree murder. His trial included evidence and testimony that he broke Brianna Cole’s back and ruptured her aorta on Dec. 20, 2002, after the infant’s crying interrupted a video game he was playing in their home.

    In September, the state Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 to deny clemency for Cole, who did not appear at the hearing. Brianna’s uncle Bryan Young urged the board to reject the bid for mercy.

    Seven years earlier, in 2015, the board had denied Cole clemency by a vote of 3-2.

    Corrections officials said Cole’s execution began at 10:04 a.m., delayed by a few minutes because he had elected to be wheeled in a chair rather than walk to the execution chamber.

    Oklahoma currently employs a three-chemical cocktail for lethal injection: midazolam for sedation, rocuronium bromide for halting respiration and potassium chloride for stopping the heart. Cole was declared dead by a medical doctor at 10:22 a.m., 18 minutes after the injections began.

    Five members of the media from Oklahoma City and McAlester were selected to witness the execution and agreed with Department of Corrections officials in a press conference afterward that Cole’s lethal injection appeared to go off without any complications.

    Those media witnesses reported that Cole never mentioned his victim or expressed any remorse.

    Instead, Cole reportedly used the full two minutes allotted for last words on a “rambling,” sometimes “raspy” voiced stream of consciousness prayer.

    He reportedly recommended others “choosing Jesus” while they still can and said, “I pray you receive my spirit,” “I forgive everyone that I have done wrong,” “I pray for Oklahoma,” and “I pray for this great nation.”

    Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor said in a written statement: “Justice is now served for Brianna Cole and the people of Oklahoma. Nothing can fill the void experienced by the loss of a loved one, and this does not bring Brianna back to her family. Our hearts and prayers are with them.”

    Cole’s attorneys repeatedly opposed the execution in court actions on the basis of his mental state. They claimed that he no longer posed a threat because he had paranoid schizophrenia with brain damage to the point of being incapable of communicating or managing basic hygiene tasks.

    The attorneys tried to argue that Oklahoma’s procedure for determining competency is constitutionally flawed, but the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday and early Thursday denied requests to intervene in the execution.

    The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday rejected a stay request and a request to intervene in a lower court decision that determined Cole was competent to be executed.

    After an evidentiary hearing in early October, Pittsburg County District Judge Mike Hogan had found that Cole “does not meet the required ‘substantial threshold’ showing of insanity.”

    Although Cole’s own attorneys said they had not been able to communicate with him, he reportedly participated in a 150-minute evaluation at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita in July, which Hogan described as “very persuasive on the issue of the defendant’s current capacity.”

    While being evaluated at the Oklahoma Forensic Center, Cole was reported to have said he understood that he was there to see if he was “mentally fit for court and competent here to see if I can go ahead and, I guess, be executed.”

    Tom Hird, one of Cole’s attorneys, said after September’s clemency hearing that Cole had a 15-millimeter lesion in his brain that was continuing to grow.

    “He’s not faking it,” said Hird, a federal public defender, at that time. “He’s not some sort of mastermind.”

    Brianna Cole’s aunt and uncle — sister and brother of her mother — witnessed Thursday’s execution because they said it was best that Brianna’s mother not be there.

    At a press conference afterward, the two lamented that so much attention is paid to death-row inmates, while victims often become footnotes in news coverage and court hearings along the long road of carrying out a death sentence.

    Their blond, blue-eyed infant niece was killed, they said, just days before her first Christmas and a scheduled family holiday gathering where they were to meet her for the first time.

    Instead, the first time Donna Daniel of Broken Arrow said she laid eyes on the child, the baby was in a casket.

    “She died a horrific death. This man abused her prior to what he did to kill her — and he gets off easy and gets to get a little injection in his arm and go to sleep,” said Daniel, adding that Brianna should be 20 years old now. “We have this little girl we never got to see grow up. She will always be a part of our family.”

    Young, of Muskogee, noted that Cole was first scheduled for execution in 2015. But he said court maneuvering by attorneys extended the process, only adding hardship for Brianna’s relatives.

    “20 years? Give me a break!” Young said, adding that he intended to seek out his state legislators to see what could be done to expedite executions after a conviction and death sentence.

    Cole is the 201st person to be executed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary since 1915, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The state’s death-row population now numbers 40 men and one woman.

    https://tulsaworld.com/news/state-an...0dc4f793d.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

Page 7 of 7 FirstFirst ... 567

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •