The State of Alabama plans to execute James Osgood, 55, by lethal injection on April 24. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set the execution date after Mr. Osgood wrote a letter giving up on his appeals and asking the State to execute him.
An Unreliable Death Sentence
In 2014, Mr. Osgood was convicted of two counts of capital murder in the 2010 death of Tracy Brown in Chilton County.
At the penalty phase, his defense offered mitigating evidence to persuade the jury to impose life without parole rather than death, including that Mr. Osgood had been sexually abused as a child, his brain development was potentially hindered by the malnutrition he suffered as an infant, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital as a teenager, and he had attempted suicide.
Under state and federal law, jurors are required to consider all mitigating evidence in deciding whether to impose a death sentence. It is only after such consideration that our legal system can be confident that it is making the correct decision as to who is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole or death.
But despite the wealth of mitigating evidence that existed to support a life sentence in this case, Mr. Osgood’s trial judge gave instructions that limited the jury’s consideration of all the relevant mitigating evidence.
EJI argued on appeal that the trial court’s instruction was unconstitutional and deprived Mr. Osgood of his right to have a jury fully consider mitigating evidence. In 2016, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and sent the case back to the trial court for a new penalty phase trial.
Before the new sentencing trial, the same trial judge appointed the same defense lawyer, who did next to nothing to prepare for the resentencing. Counsel did not even request an updated presentence report to show that Mr. Osgood had an exemplary prison record during the nearly four years since his original trial. They also persuaded him to waive jury participation at his sentencing proceedings.
After waiving Mr. Osgood’s right to a jury trial, his lawyers called no witnesses and presented no evidence. Not surprisingly, the same judge who had wrongly told jurors not to consider evidence of Mr. Osgood’s devastating childhood abuse and neglect, mental health issues, or suicidal tendencies sentenced him, again, to death.
On appeal, even though no jury considered all of the relevant and compelling mitigating evidence in support of a life sentence, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Mr. Osgood’s death sentence.
Failure to Adequately Consider Mental Illness
New counsel for Mr. Osgood filed a postconviction petition challenging his conviction and death sentence as unconstitutional and unreliable because, despite having evidence that should have been reviewed by an expert, his trial lawyers presented no witnesses or evidence at his resentencing.
James’s parents abandoned him when he was only nine months old, court filings show. When James and his two sisters were found alone in the house, James was so malnourished that he had rickets, a severe nutritional deficiency which causes bones to bow and adversely affects brain development. At nine months, James weighed the same that he had at birth.
DHR records document the abandonment, neglect, and abuse he endured from birth until he was discharged from the system at 17. His adoptive mother took James and his sister to bars and left them alone with strangers, resulting in James being sexually abused and witnessing the sexual abuse of his sister. James had to save his sister when their adoptive mother tried to drown her in the bathtub.
Between 12 and 17, James lived in 12 different places, including foster homes, with adoptive parents, in shelters, and at a group treatment facility. He was admitted to a mental health hospital as a teenager. He still has a visible and distinct lump on the top of his head, where a bat was broken over his head as an adolescent.
In part because of this childhood trauma, James has struggled with suicidal tendencies. At about 12, DHR documented James as “depressed and distraught.” In 1985, at about 17, he sent his caseworker a letter that “indicated suicidal tendencies.” James attempted suicide in 1997.
An expert could have used this evidence to explain how the abuse, neglect, and trauma that Mr. Osgood suffered throughout his childhood can cause permanent brain damage and negatively impact brain development.
Mr. Osgood’s petition is still pending, meaning no court has considered how this missing evidence undermines the reliability of his death sentence.
People with mental illness face a greater risk of being executed without review of their convictions or sentences even though the law forbids executing people who are mentally incompetent.
Nearly 10% of the people executed since 1976 gave up their appeals, and according to recent findings from the Death Penalty Information Center, 87% of those who gave up their appeals were suffering from mental illness, substance abuse, or both.