Edwin Turner (pictured), a death row inmate in Mississippi, is scheduled for execution on February 8. His attorney, Jim Craig, has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court and Governor Phil Bryant for a reprieve, based in part on Turner's mental illness. Craig said, “The Supreme Court has not decided the question of whether a prisoner with a severe mental disorder or disability which significantly impairs that person’s ability to rationally process information, to make reasonable judgments and to control their impulses, whether people in that category can be executed. So we’re asking the Supreme Court to establish that it would be contrary to consensus of moral values, that it would be cruel and unusual punishment, to execute someone with severe mental illness.” Turner is facing execution for the 1995 shooting of a clerk and a customer at a gas station. His accomplice received a sentence of life without parole after pleading guilty to murder. Turner has a long family history of mental illness: his great-grandmother and grandmother were committed to state hospitals. Turner’s mother attempted suicide twice, and his father was killed in an explosion that some believe was a suicide. Turner has also attempted suicide several times, including one instance that left his face permanently disfigured. UPDATE: Altlhough a federal District Court granted a stay on Feb. 6, the Court of Appeals lifted the stay on Feb. 8, and the state is planning to carry out the execution as scheduled.
On April 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reduced the death sentence of Daniel Greene (pictured) to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Board had stayed Greene's execution, which was set for April 19, in order to further consider his clemency petition. Greene's petition included letters from several members of the Taylor County community, where the murder occurred, urging the Board to spare Greene's life. Among the letters was one from a former correctional officer, Randy Foster, who called Greene "as fine a man as I have ever met in my life," and said, "He is not like anyone else on death row. Daniel Greene is the type of person you want for an inmate. He has never given me (or anyone else as far as I know) even the hint of a problem." In his own letter to the Board, Greene apologized for the pain he caused the victim's family and said, "I was on drugs at the time, but I took the drugs with my hands, and I take the responsibility. That choice to do drugs and what I did after were the worst mistakes of my life. I do not blame the drugs. I blame myself for everything." This was the second clemency granted nationally in 2012 and the eighth granted in Georgia since 1976.
Oklahoma inmate Garry Allen (pictured) is scheduled for execution on April 12, despite a Pardon and Parole Board's 4-1 recommendation that his sentence be reduced to life without parole. In an unusual move, Mr. Allen originally pleaded guilty to murdering his girlfriend without receiving any benefit in sentencing, and has testified that he did so to spare his family and the victim's family the trauma of a trial. Allen was shot in the head at the time of his arrest. His lawyers have argued that he is not sane and should not be executed because of his history of mental illness and alcoholism. His court records indicate "probable diagnosis is Schizophrenic Disorder, or Anxiety Disorder in a Paranoid Personality," but in 2008 a jury found him sane enough for execution. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has said she has reviewed the case and does not intend to grant clemency. UPDATE: A federal judge has granted Allen a stay to explore issues of mental competency. Oklahoma is appealing the stay to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (April 12, 2012).
On January 17, Delaware Governor Jack Markell commuted the death sentence of 
On January 3, attorneys for Robert Gattis (pictured) filed a clemency petition with the Delaware Board of Pardons, requesting they recommend commuting his death sentence to life without parole. Gattis is scheduled for execution on January 20. According to the petition, details of frequent sexual, physical and psychological abuse occuring during Gattis's childhood were never presented to the jury or the judge at the time of his sentencing. As a pre-school child and through adolescence, Gattis was the victim of repeated rapes and molestations by multiple perpetrators, including both male and female family members. John Deckers, an attorney for Gattis said, “The kind of sexual, physical and psychological abuse that Mr. Gattis suffered is precisely the kind of information that a sentencing judge and jury should know when deciding whether to sentence someone to life or death, but Mr. Gattis's sentencing judge and jury never knew this information. They did not have an accurate picture of Mr. Gattis or the crime, and clemency is the mechanism that allows the Governor to correct such mistakes in the legal system.” A pardons-board recommendation for clemency is necessary for Governor Jack Markell to commute the sentence. Gattis was sentenced to death in 1992 for killing his former girlfriend.