Too Mentally Ill To Stand In Court, Texas Inmate Fights On

[Access to Justice Law360]

A Texas death row prisoner who gouged out both of his eyes and suffers from schizoaffective disorder is fighting efforts to move forward with his execution, arguing that his severe psychosis leaves him unable to rationally understand why the state wants to kill him. His case highlights a broader debate over whether the Constitution should bar the execution of people with severe mental illness, even when they technically know they are on death row.

Access to Justice

SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2026

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ACCESS TO JUSTICE FEATURES Too Mentally Ill To Stand In Court, Texas Inmate Fights On By Marco Poggio A Texas death row prisoner who gouged out both of his eyes and suffers from schizoaffective disorder is fighting efforts to move forward with his execution, arguing that his severe psychosis leaves him unable to rationally understand why the state wants to kill him. His case highlights a broader debate over whether the Constitution should bar the execution of people with severe mental illness, even when they technically know they are on death row. Read full article » | Save to favorites » California Is Latest Battleground In Defining Access To Justice By Brandon Lowrey A pair of dueling California ballot initiatives both purport to increase consumers' access to justice — a righteous cause, most would say. If only the initiatives' backers agreed on what that means. 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LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS Aitken Aitken Big Fire Law Carpenter & Zuckerman Casey Lundregan Covington & Burling Emery Celli Foley Hoag Goodwin Procter Greenberg Traurig Lanier Law Firm Metaxas Brown Robinson Bradshaw Weil Gotshal COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS Alaska Legal Services Corp. Amazon.com Inc. American Civil Liberties Union Apple Inc. Burke Inc. Consumer Attorneys of California Cornell University Defender Association of Philadelphia Epic Games Inc. FedEx Corp. Fordham University George Washington University Getty Images Holdings Inc. Google LLC John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Juvenile Law Center Lawyers for Civil Justice Lincoln Property Co. Meta Platforms Inc. Microsoft Corp. National Academy of Sciences New York University OpenAI OpCo LLC Stanford University The Sacramento Bee The UPS Store Twitter Inc. Uber Technologies Inc. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS Bureau of Labor Statistics California Supreme Court Connecticut Judicial Branch Cook County State's Attorney's Office Judicial Conference of the United States Los Angeles Superior Court Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Mesa County, Colorado New York Supreme Court, New York County Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rosebud Sioux Tribe Texas Department of Criminal Justice U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit U.S. Department of Justice U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Postal Service U.S. Sentencing Commission U.S. Supreme Court

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS Aitken Aitken Big Fire Law Carpenter & Zuckerman Casey Lundregan Covington & Burling Emery Celli Foley Hoag Goodwin Procter Greenberg Traurig Lanier Law Firm Metaxas Brown Robinson Bradshaw Weil Gotshal COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS Alaska Legal Services Corp. Amazon.com Inc. American Civil Liberties Union Apple Inc. Burke Inc. Consumer Attorneys of California Cornell University Defender Association of Philadelphia Epic Games Inc. FedEx Corp. Fordham University George Washington University Getty Images Holdings Inc. Google LLC John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Juvenile Law Center Lawyers for Civil Justice Lincoln Property Co. Meta Platforms Inc. Microsoft Corp. National Academy of Sciences New York University OpenAI OpCo LLC Stanford University The Sacramento Bee The UPS Store Twitter Inc. Uber Technologies Inc. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS Bureau of Labor Statistics California Supreme Court Connecticut Judicial Branch Cook County State's Attorney's Office Judicial Conference of the United States Los Angeles Superior Court Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Mesa County, Colorado New York Supreme Court, New York County Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rosebud Sioux Tribe Texas Department of Criminal Justice U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit U.S. Department of Justice U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Postal Service U.S. Sentencing Commission U.S. Supreme Court

 

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