CLEVELAND, Ohio — The 79-year-old man spends his days in bed, too weak to be among others.
He struggles to remember names and faces. His speech and thoughts are garbled, and he relies on aides to get him through the day, as he cannot walk. His attorneys say he has dementia.
And yet, James Frazier remains scheduled to be executed next year for a 2004 slaying.
Frazier is the oldest man on Ohio’s death row. While nearly all of the 138 felons sentenced to die are housed at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, Frazier is at the prison system’s Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, home to the state’s most feeble inmates.
He underscores a growing trend that is hitting prisons across the nation: Death-row populations are aging, fast becoming geriatric units filled with frail men and women, some of whom struggle to remember the crimes they committed and why they are behind bars, records and interviews show.
In Ohio, one in four inmates on death row is 60 or older.
The state’s figures mirror national numbers, as 675 of the 2,650 inmates on death row – or one in four – are 60 or older, according to the most recent figures from the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
“This has become an important issue as inmates age,” said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the center. “It’s a problem that we are going to see with increased frequency. We’re concerned about this.
“Because the death penalty in the judicial system has so many flaws, it has now also created physical and mental-health problems that may make it impossible for states to carry out even constitutionally imposed sentences.”
Frazier’s attorneys are fighting to keep him from lethal injection, which is scheduled in October 2021. They are part of a longstanding case in U.S. District Court in Columbus over the constitutionality of lethal injection.
Prosecutors are fighting Frazier’s case. They have long held that the case and circumstances of each death-row inmate must be examined individually, no matter the felon’s age.
In court documents, lawyers for the Ohio Attorney General’s office called the claims brought by Frazier’s attorneys nothing more than “recycled allegations [that] have been rejected by the courts.”
In many ways, Frazier’s case is quite similar to that of Vernon Madison. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Madison, a 69-year-old Alabama man who was convicted of killing a police officer, could not be put to death because dementia had greatly diminished his cognitive abilities.
Ohio has not executed an inmate since July 2018, when Robert Van Hook of Cincinnati was put to death. The state has postponed executions until it can find new drugs needed for lethal injection.
Michael Benza, a Case Western Reserve University senior instructor in law, represents death-row inmates on appeal. He said the graying of death-row inmates is apparent. He also said it is clear how age-related issues could impact executions.
“One of the side effects of the our death-penalty system is that it takes a long time,” Benza said, referring to the appeals process. “We’re going to see more and more people like Vernon Madison and James Frazier, and we won’t be able to carry out their executions.”
Take George Skatzes.
At 74, Skatzes is one of the oldest inmates on death row. He was sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot in which guard Robert Vallandingham and nine inmates were killed.
He was serving time at Lucasville because of a previous conviction of aggravated murder.
Skatzes’ appearance has faded rapidly in recent years; he is a shell of the large man he once was. He also suffers from severe psychiatric issues, according to federal court records.
His attorneys have cited those issues in arguments to prevent him from facing lethal injection. An execution date for Skatzes has not been set.
‘A rational understanding’
Frazier’s attorneys believe he had suffered a stroke in his cell at the Chillicothe prison. He later was moved to the prison’s medical center on June 12, 2018, a prison spokeswoman said.
In the past three years, his physical and cognitive abilities have deteriorated, according to a report by Dr. Joette James, a neuropsychologist who has examined Frazier since 2016.
She found his speech and thought processes have diminished greatly, as they were “rambling, disorganized and incoherent,” the report said. He struggled with time issues and could not count backward from 20 or name the months of the year backward.
One of Frazier’s attorneys, Lisa Lagos, filed the report in U.S. District Court in Columbus to bolster Frazier’s case.
In documents, she said putting Frazier to death “would constitute cruel and unusual punishment because he lacks a rational understanding of the state’s rationale for his execution.”
If Ohio carries out Frazier’s execution, he would become the second oldest inmate in the nation to be put to death.
The oldest was Walter Leroy Moody, an 83-year-old who killed a judge and a civil rights attorney with bombs in 1989. Alabama put him to death in 2018.
Frazier was sent to death row in 2005 after a jury convicted him in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in the slaying of Mary Stevenson, 49, who had suffered cerebral palsy.
Frazier lived in Stevenson’s apartment building in Toledo, and prosecutors said he strangled Stevenson and slashed her throat. He stole her purse and wallet to pay for cocaine.
Attempts to reach Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates were unsuccessful.
A spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s office, which has handled the case against Frazier, noted that state and federal appeals courts have rejected past attempts to overturn the conviction.
Frazier’s attorneys, however, are focused on preventing him from lethal injection, saying it would be unconstitutional because of his mental and physical condition.
They have sought his medical records while in prison and have monitored his condition at the prison’s medical center.
They also plan to bring up dementia again in a clemency petition that they will file in the months leading up to his execution.
Similar cases on death row
In 1985, Vernon Madison shot and killed Julius Schulte, a Mobile, Alabama, police officer during a domestic dispute. Madison was convicted and sentenced to death.
His attorneys argued that Madison suffered several strokes while in prison, and his cognitive abilities declined sharply, according to court records.
They said Madison had dementia and could not walk or see. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
“There are people on Alabama’s death row who are frail and vulnerable and need protection,” Angie Setzer, a lawyer for the Equal Justice Initiative that represented Madison, told The Plain Dealer.
“What is the punitive value of executing someone like Mr. Madison, whose cognitive decline prevents him from understanding what is happening to him and why?”
Schulte’s son, Michael, told the Associated Press that the long legal case failed to provide justice to his family.
“What happened to my dad was cruel and unusual punishment,” he told the wire service. “He was shot twice in the head while he was trying to help somebody.”
Madison died in prison of natural causes in February, nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s decision.
Other prison-related stories:
‘There is no oversight’: Staff cuts leave Ohio prison inspections to interns
Ohio lawmakers seek to stop sentences of life without parole for youth felons
Parenting in prison: Ohio nursery offers moms, children time to bond
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