An Oklahoma man who in 2004, was angered that his nine-month-old daughter’s crying was interrupting his video game, killed her by bending her backwards until her spine was broken. That murder was executed Thursday by lethal injection. Olivia Land of the New York Post reports that lawyers for Benjamin Cole claimed that their client was mentally incompetent due to his long exposure to drugs and alcohol. A state panel rejected Cole’s bid for clemency last month. Cole was one of four Oklahoma murderers who in 2015, challenged the state’s lethal injection process, claiming that it violated the Eighth Amendment bar against cruel and unusual punishment. In its June 20, 2015 decision in Glossip v. Gross a 5-4 Supreme Court majority rejected the claim, holding that a murderer who challenges a state’s method of execution, shall be required to present an available alternative method. The CJLF brief in this case argued for that holding. Cole was the sixth Oklahoma murderer put to death since the state resumed executions in 2021. The Glossip decision made it possible.
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