Mental Health Issues Cloud Joe Bates Case As Execution Nears
Raleigh, NC September 21, 2003 Lawyers for Joseph Earl Bates, scheduled to die by lethal injection on September 26, are asking the courts and Governor Easley to consider a pivotal fact that has yet to be addressed in his case: Bates suffered brain damage in an auto accident that changed his personality and left him paranoid, anxious and depressed. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that such factors should be considered in capital cases. “Joe’s brain injury led directly to the circumstances that put him on death row,” says attorney Rosemary Godwin. “Execution is not the appropriate punishment for Joe given his history of mental impairment.”
Bates confessed to the 1990 Yadkin County murder of Charles Jenkins after offering him a ride home from a bar. Though the two had never met previously, Bates believed Jenkins was plotting against him in cahoots with his estranged wife. Weeks earlier, someone had fired a shot into Bates’ trailer; fearing for his life, Bates had boobytrapped the trailer and had been sleeping in trees and cars. “Mr. Bates was suffering from serious mental disturbance at the time of the offense,” says clinical psychologist Claudia Coleman, who met with Bates and reviewed his medical history. “It is my strong opinion that his ability to adequately reason, to consider alternative behaviors, and to appreciate the full consequences of his acts was impaired at that specific time.”
Though borderline mentally retarded, Bates had been a hard worker as a youth who had won a vocational scholarship to study diesel mechanics at a local community college. But friends, neighbors and family members say that the 1987 car crash transformed him from the child-like 18-year-old who had been so eager to please those around him. “I noticed a lot of changes in Joe’s mannerisms and personality after the wreck,” says his former football coach and mentor, Charles Collins. When Bates would visit, Collins recalls, he seemed agitated and mistrusting. “This was so unlike the Joe I had always known, who wanted people to like him and was always willing to help other people.
Unfortunately, jurors never got to hear of Joe’s brain damage, as his trial lawyers did little investigation and never raised the issue. He won a second trial in 1993 because the court had failed to provide him a mental health expert. But the expert who testified at his second trial, John Warren, was also unaware of his brain injury and now says he would have evaluated him differently had he known the facts. Four jurors from that trial also say they might have voted differently had they known of the injury. “As the Andrea Yates case in Texas demonstrated, an understanding of mental illness can significantly affect outcomes at trial,” says attorney Robert Hale. “In the interest of fairness, Joe’s illness should be fully considered.
Bates might have fleshed out his claim earlier. Ironically, however, the post-conviction lawyer who did most of the work on his case had a breakdown due to severe depression, stopped working and left town. That lawyer, David Williams, now admits that his impairment “had a serious and adverse impact on my ability to adequately represent Joseph Bates.”
There is no doubt that Bates killed Charles Jenkins. But new evidence makes clear that mental illness directly affected his behavior. Joseph Earl Bates is paying for his crime, but the courts and Governor Easley should realize that execution in this case is unwarranted and unreasonable.
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