The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area death for the rape and murder of a girl in the same town. On 2 September 2014, both McCollum and Brown were granted motions requesting the charges against them be dismissed and convictions vacated, which resulted in their release, 30 years after they were first sentenced. In June 2015, the North Carolina governor pardoned both men.123 Foreign Nationals As of 9 June 2015, there were 139 foreign nationals on death row in the United States.124 Nationals of Mexico comprised the biggest portion of this group (60), followed by Cuba (9) and El Salvador (8). The three states with the highest numbers of foreign nationals on death row are California (61 inmates), Texas (22) and Florida (21). There have been no executions of foreign nationals in the reporting period. One foreign national on death row in Alabama commited suicide in April 2015.125 Individuals with Mental Illness or Intellectual Disability According to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia, executing individuals with “mental retardation” represents a violation of the Eight Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which bans cruel and unusual punishment.126 During the reporting period, one of the primary recommendations being discussed by the Ohio Supreme Court task force was to prohibit the imposition of the death penalty on people with serious mental illness.127 Cecil Clayton, an inmate suffering from dementia who had 20 per cent of his frontal lobe removed after a sawmill accident, was executed in Missouri in March 2015.128 Psychiatrists said that the removal of a part of Clayton’s brain caused violent 123  “North Carolina governor pardons two men who spent 30 years behind bars”, The Washington Post, 4 June 2015, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/04/north-carolina-governor-pardons-two-men-whospent-30-years-behind-bars/>. 124  “Foreign Nationals and the Death Penalty in the US”, Death Penalty Information Center website, <http://www. deathpenaltyinfo.org/foreign-nationals-and-death-penalty-us>; the DPIC does not include dual nationals in this list. 125  “Convicted cop-killer hangs himself in Alabama prison”, AL.com, 27 April 2015, <http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/04/convicted_cop-killer_hangs_him.html>. 126  “Atkins v. Virginia”, Cornell University Law School, 20 June 2002, <https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/008452.ZO.html>. 127  “Mentally ill murderers would avoid death penalty under new Ohio Senate bill”, Cleveland.com, 15 May 2015, <http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/05/mentally_ill_murderers_would_a.html>. 128  “Lawyers Seek Reprieve for Killer Who Lost Part of His Brain Decades Earlier”, The New York Times, 7 March 2015, <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/us/lawyers-seek-reprieve-for-killer-who-lost-part-of-his-brain-decades-earlier.html>. 28