Individuals with brain damage due to fetal alcohol syndrome should be exempt from execution

In less than a week, Indiana is set to execute Benjamin Ritchie, a man with significant brain damage due to Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (pFAS) and exposure to multiple neurotoxins, even though no jury was ever presented with evidence about Ritchie’s multiple impairments.

His trial lawyers never identified or even investigated his condition. This is not completely surprising because pFAS is sometimes missed due to the fact that the facial abnormalities are not as apparent as they are for individuals who have other forms of the condition, but the brain damage is just as severe. Individuals with pFAS should be afforded the same constitutional protections against execution that those with intellectual disabilities have received for the last 23 years.

Exposure to alcohol while in utero can affect every stage of an individual’s brain development and cause long-term deficits with regards to cognitive, motor, and behavioral functions. Neuroimaging studies have found that prenatal alcohol exposure leads to a decrease in brain volume/size, reductions in gray matter, and disorganization of the central nervous system, as well as other brain abnormalities.

Individuals with pFAS, like Ritchie, typically demonstrate deficits with executive functioning, including cognitive processes like working memory, problem solving, planning, and response inhibition. They may also lack impulse control, concept formation, and adaptive functioning skills which are necessary for everyday life, including the development of appropriate social relationships. Ritchie’s impairments directly contribute to his lack of capacity for rationality and his limited ability to reflect on the potential outcomes of his behavior.

The fact that he was only 20 years old at the time of the crime may also have played a role because brain scientists have discovered that in a healthy individual, the parts of the brain responsible for impulse control are not fully developed until age 25. One expert found that, at the time of the crime, Ritchie’s functional age due to his multiple impairments was more similar to a child or adolescent’s than a 20-year-old. Throughout his life, he has consistently been less capable of resisting his social and emotional impulses than most individuals his age.

The national organization, FASD United, believes that it is critical that judges, jurors, prosecutors, and corrections officers are educated about pFAS and are made aware that experts have determined that its impact on individuals is functionally the same as an intellectual disability. Minnesota and Alaska have appropriately codified Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders as developmental disabilities. The U.S. Supreme Court determined in 2002 that death is not the appropriate punishment for individuals with intellectual disability because they are less culpable for their actions. The same should be true for individuals with pFAS and related conditions.

Ritchie was also exposed to excessive amounts of neurotoxins as a child, which may have compounded his impairments. From conception to age five, when the brain is most malleable and vulnerable to injury, he was exposed to three highly neurotoxic agents – alcohol, multiple psychoactive drugs, and lead, increasing his risk of neurological deficits.

If any of this information about Ritchie’s multiple impairments had been properly investigated and presented to the jury; he may never have been sentenced to death. At the time of trial, he even offered to accept a sentence of life without parole. Unfortunately, the Indiana Supreme Court voted 2-2 to deny Ritchie’s request to consider this new information even though all four voting justices acknowledged there was ample evidence of his brain damage due to pFAS.

Ritchie’s execution should not proceed under these circumstances.