Rodney Berget was executed by lethal injection in South Dakota on Monday, 18 years after his older brother was executed in Oklahoma (PAUL BUCK)

Washington (AFP) – A 56-year-old American man was executed by lethal injection in South Dakota on Monday for killing a prison guard, despite pleas he was intellectually disabled and legally exempt from the punishment.

Rodney Berget was executed 18 years after his brother met the same fate in Oklahoma for killing a man whose car he was attempting to steal. 

Berget was condemned to death in 2012 for murdering the guard during a failed escape bid, while serving a life sentence for two attempted murders and a rape.

At his trial, Berget said: “I believe I deserve the death penalty for what I have done.”

Despite that, his execution was delayed by several appeals. But in 2016 he withdrew his last appeal, telling the judge in charge of his case that he could not face “another 30 years in a cage doing a life sentence.”

The South Dakota Department of Corrections issued a statement at Monday night confirming the execution had taken place in a “professional, humane and dignified manner and in accordance with state law.”

It was the state’s fourth execution since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976.

His elder brother, Roger James Berget, was executed in 2000 in Oklahoma at the age of 39 for killing a math teacher whose car he was trying to steal. No family members attended his execution, local media wrote at the time.

US media said that the two men came from a troubled family rife with alcohol abuse and violence. Their father threw the older brother out of the home when he was just 10, his lawyer argued in his defense.

Two lawyers challenged the execution, one arguing against the method of execution itself and the other on the grounds of Berget’s mental instability.

An open letter on his behalf was also written by Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, arguing Berget suffered from intellectual disability and should not be executed. 

Berget competed in the South Dakota Special Olympics as a boy in the early 1970s.

“People with intellectual disabilities are often more likely to be coerced into doing things they do not understand, and are less likely to understand the consequences of their actions,” wrote Shriver in the Sioux Falls Argus Reader in his letter outlining Berget’s difficult upbringing and the severity of his mental handicap.

“There is no disputing the severity of Berget’s actions.

“But for the government to execute him, ignoring compelling evidence of the disability that left Berget unable to steer his turbulent life, or to understand the punishment that awaits him?    

“The Constitution, with powerful justification, forbids it.”

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