KY Inmates Seek Clemency Through Medical Tests
Two Kentucky death row inmates are hoping that brain scans and mental tests will bolster their cases for a rare grant of executive clemency that would spare their lives.
Ralph S. Baze Jr., condemned for killing a sheriff and deputy in eastern Kentucky in 1992, has asked a federal judge to grant him funding for testing as he prepares a petition for Gov. Steve Beshear.
Baze’s request, filed Wednesday in federal court, comes just more than two weeks after U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman in Louisville granted $7,500 to Parramore Lee Sanborn to pursue a possible claim of brain damage. He was convicted in 1983 of killing Barbara Heilman in Henry County.
Governors have granted commutations to only two death row inmates in Kentucky in the last 35 years.
