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Death sentence commuted for mentally ill man

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Georgia's parole board Monday commuted the death sentence of a mentally ill man whose scheduled execution for killing a teen-age girl raised questions about executing youthful offenders and the insane.

Alexander Williams had been scheduled for execution at midnight Monday. His sentence has now been commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole, officials said.

"After hearing the psychiatric report this morning the board deliberated and reached its decision late this afternoon," a statement from the five-member parole board said.

Williams, 33, was convicted of the 1986 kidnapping, raping and killing of 16-year-old Aleta Bunch. He was 17 at the time of the murder.

"We have the deepest sympathy for the family of Aleta Bunch and especially her mother, Mrs. Carolyn Bunch," said parole board chairman Walter Ray. "By making sure that Williams will remain in an 8-foot by 10-foot prison cell for the rest of his life with absolutely no hope for parole, we hope that the certainty of our decision will give Mrs. Bunch the closure she so deserves."

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Williams' case had drawn the attention of former first lady Rosalyn Carter, in part because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

"I've been interested in the case of mentally ill people being executed for a very long time," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer before the clemency decision was announced.

Williams' mental illness and history of abuse by his mother and stepmother was never brought up in trial, Carter said. She added that his defense representation was woeful: "To my understanding it lasted 15 minutes in the courtroom, and that's not fair. He should have had good defense."

Other death penalty opponents had taken up Williams' cause.

"His attorney did almost no research into his background. Had he done so, he would have been able to show the jury evidence both of Mr. Williams's mental illness, and of the incredible abuse that he suffered as a child. Five of the eight surviving original trial jurors said that they would not have voted for the death penalty had they heard more about Mr. Williams," according to a statement by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally ill. But it has yet to rule on whether the mentally ill are eligible for the death penalty, if they are successfully treated by a psychiatrist after the crime is committed. The human rights group Amnesty International calls that condition "synthetically sane."

Williams "was denied his right to adequate trial representation, and he suffers from serious mental illness for which he has been forcibly medicated on death row," Amnesty International said.

Through the years, the victim's mother has made statements in support of Williams' execution.

"I'm really anxious about it," Carolyn Bunch told the Augusta Chronicle last month. "It would be such a relief if I could just get a little peace of mind."