Oklahoma death row inmate James Ryder’s execution delayed at least 100 days for competency hearing

By Cameron Sibert

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    OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — A court has scheduled a hearing to determine the competency of Oklahoma death row inmate James Ryder.

The hearing was announced less than a month before Ryder was scheduled to be executed. Now, it will be delayed by at least 100 days.

Ryder’s attorneys have created enough doubt to be granted a competency hearing and are getting ready to argue that he is not mentally stable enough to be executed.

Ryder was sentenced to death for his role in the 1999 murders of a mother and son in Pittsburg County over a property dispute.

His attorneys say several psychologists have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and concluded that he’s not competent. Under Oklahoma law, an inmate is not mentally competent if they cannot understand the reason they are being executed and cannot understand that the execution is imminent.

Many Oklahomans continue to oppose the death penalty altogether.

“They will still be behind bars for the rest of their life, but the state won’t be in the business of killing people,” Don Heath, with the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond says he’s not against a competency hearing and that his office plans to present evidence showing Ryder is competent for execution.

A Pittsburg County judge will host a hearing with Ryder’s attorneys to determine if he is competent. Ryder’s execution was initially scheduled for Feb. 1.

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