Michael Lambert

June 22, 2005

12:00am

The state of Indiana plans to execute 34-year-old Michael Lambert, a white man, on June 22, 2005 for the December 1990 murder of Officer Gregg Winters in Delaware County.

Lambert consumed an excessive amount of alcohol on Dec. 27, 1990. He began drinking during the afternoon hours and continued to drink heavily throughout the remainder of the day and well into the evening. A patron of a bar that Lambert went to that evening described his demeanor as “wild-eyed.” Clearly, he was heavily intoxicated.

In the early morning hours of Dec. 28, Muncie police spotted Lambert attempting to crawl under a car in order to go to sleep off his drunkenness. Lambert was subsequently arrested for public intoxication. Officer Winters handcuffed Lambert, placed him into the backseat of his cruiser, and then proceeded to drive him towards the local jail. At some point during the commute, Lambert managed to obtain access to a pistol that was located on his person and shot Officer Winters multiple times. Officer Winters passed away 11 days later as a result of the gunshot wounds.

Lambert was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Officer Winters. At trial, a toxicology expert testified that Lambert’s decision to shoot Officer Winters was likely influenced by his high level of intoxication. Nevertheless, a jury found him guilty of the offense and sentenced him to death.

On direct appeal, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that a large portion of the victim impact testimony offered during the sentencing phase of Lambert’s trial had been erroneously admitted. The justices then determined that this inadmissible testimony might have impacted the jury’s decision to sentence Lambert to death. However, rather then send the case back to trial for resentencing, the justices reweighed the aggravating and mitigating factors and determined that the imposition of a death sentence was proper. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Boehm expressed his conviction that sentencing in capital cases should be done solely at the trial level due to the gravity of the potential sentence. He wrote, “I do not believe it is customary for this or any appellate court to originate a sentence as opposed to reviewing and revising a sentence imposed by the trial court. There may be circumstances when that action is appropriate, but this is not one of them.”

Perhaps neither the jury nor the justices would have imposed a death sentence had they been made fully aware of all of the mitigating factors in Lambert’s case. Much to Lambert’s detriment, mitigating evidence pertaining to his mental condition was not presented at trial. Dr. Edmund Haskins, a neurophysiologist, and Dr. Robert Smith, a clinical psychologist, separately examined Lambert following the trial. Their findings indicate that Lambert suffers from “organic brain dysfunction, dysthymia, and substance dependence with antisocial and dependent personality features.” Haskins and Smith both concluded that these conditions may hinder Lambert’s ability to control his impulses and act in accordance with the law.

The execution of the mentally ill is a deplorable violation of international human rights standards. In April 2000, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights urged all states that maintain the death penalty "not to impose it on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder” and “not to execute any such person."