Ricky Ray Malone thinks the state trooper he killed in 2003 is still alive. Sentenced to die by lethal injection, Malone believes he is both God and the Antichrist and will be resurrected after his execution, according to a mental health evaluation from February. 

The psychologist who examined him opined that Malone is too mentally ill to be executed and will likely never recover, even with forced injections of antipsychotic drugs. Mental health evaluations over the past 15 years have repeatedly found that Malone’s mental illness is too severe for him to be executed.

Malone cut off part of his ear and ate it in 2016 to stop other people from hearing the thoughts in his head, according to a 2017 competency evaluation. Malone stopped eating and lost weight because his delusions led him to believe the food was depleting the “copper” in his blood, a 2017 competency evaluation said. 

He’s been in treatment to try to restore his mental competency at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita since 2017.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for people with severe mental illnesses who lack a rational understanding of the reason they are being executed. Malone is one of three mentally ill men in Oklahoma who have been found too sick to be put to death. Some experts say that when it’s clear people with severe mental illnesses won’t regain competency, they should commute the sentence to life in prison without parole.

But Oklahoma doesn’t have a plan on what to do with people who are too mentally ill to be executed. Instead, lawmakers passed House Bill 1693, a new law that takes effect this month, requiring the state to provide continued treatment and updates on the person’s condition every six months. 

Some experts questioned the continued treatment to restore their competency for prisoners who have been severely mentally ill for decades.

“It’s certainly inefficient and a waste of resources. Even if this person just barely squeaks over the line in competency, you’re still executing someone who has a long-standing, persistent, severe mental illness, and that is something that’s inhumane,” said John H. Blume, professor of law and director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project, which says it has a neutral stance on capital punishment. 

Rep. Rande Worthen-R, Lawton, the lead author of HB 1693, declined to answer The Frontier’s questions but said Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested the legislation. Worthen didn’t respond to follow-up questions via email or phone. 

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Drummond’s office said in a statement to The Frontier that Malone’s case inspired the bill after he went several years without a new mental health evaluation. The Attorney General’s office said the state needed a structure to review the mental health status of people on death row. 

 “It is important to victims and the citizens of the State for the just punishment ordered by a court and jury to be carried out when that can be done lawfully,” Drummond’s office said in a statement. 

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital punishment in the United States, said she wasn’t familiar with the new Oklahoma law and was unaware of any other state that had passed similar legislation. 

“These prisoners are in a very terrible, vulnerable state,” Maher said. “So I’ve never quite understood why there is such a tremendous investment in resources and time and money in restoring someone who is so very seriously ill to competency so that they can then be executed.”

A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse told The Frontier the new law helps clarify the current process and requires the agency to work with the Department of Corrections to “determine safe confinement for incompetent death row inmates, promoting consistency and clarity.”

Three men found too mentally ill for execution 

Malone is sentenced to death for fatally shooting Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Nikky Green during a traffic stop in rural Cotton County in 2003. Malone had been battling an addiction to methamphetamine, according to his competency evaluations. His legal team questioned whether he was mentally fit, and the court overturned his sentence in 2007. A judge re-sentenced him to death in 2010 after a forensic psychologist found him competent to assist his attorneys.

Malone has not regained competency to be executed, despite receiving treatment since at least 2008 with a variety of medications, therapy and other treatments, mental health evaluations show. He still believes Green is alive and working at the same state mental hospital where he has received treatment, according to his most recent mental health evaluation. Malone’s attorney declined to comment.

Drummond’s office said in a written response to questions that the state will keep pushing for re-evaluations for as long as required by state law. The attorney general’s office said it is bound by law to carry out death sentences recommended by juries and imposed by judges. 

“The Attorney General’s Office will follow the law and will continue seeking justice for Trooper Green and his survivors,” Drummond’s office said in an email to The Frontier. “In that regard, continued competency restoration treatment is in the best interest of both the justice system and the mentally incompetent offender. Allowing an incompetent offender to remain untreated serves no one.”

The other two men on Oklahoma’s death row who have been found incompetent for execution, Wade Greely Lay, 64, and James Ryder, 63, both have years of documented histories of severe mental illness.

A court sentenced Lay to death for fatally shooting a Tulsa bank security guard during a robbery in 2004. The psychologist who evaluated Lay in 2024 determined that while Lay had a rational understanding that he will be executed, a delusional disorder affected his ability to understand the reason. Lay thinks his execution is unrelated to the murder he committed and instead believes it’s an attempt from a corrupt legal system, which fears the power he possesses.

“The ‘people would see me as a hero, and that my actions were that of a hero, and they would appreciate what I was trying to do, and still want to do, for our country,’” Lay said, according to the evaluation. 

The court sentenced Ryder to death for fatally shooting Sam Hallum, 38, and beating his mother, Daisy Hallum, to death in 1999 in Pittsburg County. 

A psychologist who evaluated Ryder in 2024 found that he had a delusional disorder, but no “demonstrative mental illness.” Orth determined that Ryder was competent for execution, but a court hasn’t ruled on that finding. 

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office asked for a new hearing, but a judge denied the request in April, finding there was insufficient evidence on whether Ryder had regained competency.  

Emma Rolls, attorney for Ryder, said in a 2024 press release that Ryder had schizophrenia for 40 years and executing him would be unconstitutional.

A low bar 

Prisoners only have to demonstrate a basic awareness of the crime they committed and their pending execution to be found competent for execution. Attorneys for several Oklahoma death row prisoners with severe mental illnesses have tried and failed to have them found incompetent. 

In 2022, Oklahoma executed Benjamin Cole, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and sat mostly catatonic in his cell for years. Cole could not walk, often smeared feces on himself and hoarded food, to the point that prison guards frequently had to remove maggot-infested leftovers from his cell, attorneys said at a 2022 clemency hearing. But they determined he was still mentally well enough for the death chamber. 

A few states have already moved away from executing anyone with severe mental illnesses. 

In 2021 Ohio became the first state to ban the execution of severely mentally ill prisoners and allow for death sentences to be commuted to life in prison. 

Local news outlets reported that nine prisoners were removed from Ohio’s death row in October because of severe mental illness. 

Kentucky passed a law in 2022 banning the death penalty in new cases where a defendant has a documented diagnosis and symptoms of some severe mental illnesses.    

Blume believes that people with severe mental illnesses should be removed from death row to live out their days in a long-term psychiatric facility.

“Even if ‌this person just barely squeaks over the line in competency, you’re still executing someone who has a long-standing, persistent, severe mental illness, and that is something that’s inhumane,” he said.