By Sandy Xie, Colleen M. Berryessa, and Farah Focquaert

In 1972, Cecil Clayton suffered a serious accident during which a piece of wood shot into his head and dislodged bone shards that pierced his brain, leading to around 20 percent of his frontal lobe being surgically removed. After the removal, Clayton, who had previously been a loving husband, father, and preacher, transformed into an aggressive alcoholic whose wife divorced him. Clayton spent the next twenty years after his accident trying to get psychiatric help, suffering from extreme depression, violent episodes, anxiety, and hallucinations. Eventually, Clayton killed a sheriff’s deputy who responded to a domestic violence call. The deputy had not even left his car when Clayton shot him point blank. Clayton did not appear to understand the wrongness of his actions, even asking a friend who was with him at the time if he should shoot other officers that came to arrest him, to which his friend answered no.

In M. Altman (Ed.), Cham, Switzerland: The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan., 38p.