Scott Panetti Case Roundup: Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, and more
Stefanie Faucher
Houston Chronicle - Executing the sick
San Antonio Express-News - Stay Panetti’s execution
Daily Texan - Texas' upcoming execution of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man, is unjust
Associated Press - Top Texas appeals court refuses to stop execution next week of inmate said to be delusional
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Texas appeals court declines to cancel Scott Panetti's execution
Mother Jones - Can Ron Paul and Conservative Evangelicals Save a Texas Death-Row Inmate?
The Guardian - ‘Floridly psychotic' Texas inmate's storied history of mental illness likely won't halt his execution
Orlando Sentinel - Pastor 'boldly' opposes execution: Front & Center
Buzzfeed - Texas Court Refuses To Stop Execution Of Schizophrenic Man
Al Jazeera America - Stay of execution denied for man described as 'severely mentally ill'
Texas Tribune - Court Declines to Stay Panetti's Execution
Texas Tribune - Deathwatch: Executing the Mentally (and Physically) Ill
San Antonio Express-News - Texas’ highest court upholds scheduled execution in 5-4 split
Houston Chronicle - Texas' highest appeals court takes no action to save double-killer from execution
KWTX - Texas Appeals Court Won’t Halt Delusional Inmate’s Execution
West Texas News - Texas appeals court refuses to take action to save double-murderer from execution
Young Americans for Liberty - Executing Scott Panetti: An Abuse of Power in Texas
Burnt Orange Report - Mentally Ill Texas Prisoner Denied Stay of Execution Again
Crime and Consequences Blog - Ineffective Assistance of Schizophrenic Self
Politics Plus - Texas Is Premeditating Murder
Statement from Attorneys for Scott Panetti: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1LFfr8Iqz_7LUR6YzBuX1NkRzA/view
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http://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Executing-the-sick-5918013.php
Executing the sick
November 26, 2014
A man driving down the Southwest Freeway suffers an epileptic seizure. He loses control of his car and crashes into the vehicle next to him, killing two. Should Texas consider that man a murderer? He did not act with intent, as most people understand it. His body and actions were not under any rational command, responding to stimuli disconnected from reality. If the driver knew he was prone to seizures, perhaps he was guilty of criminal negligence. This is why Texas has laws to prevent people with regular seizures from getting behind the wheel. Our lawmakers have erected a legal framework that is supposed to prevent harm stemming from an illness, rather than acting on fear and punishing people for things they could not control.
When Scott Panetti killed his in-laws in 1995, it would be hard to claim he had any rational control over his actions. This is a man who, before pulling the trigger, buried furniture in his yard because he believed the devil was in it.
Upon turning himself in, Panetti blamed the crime on Sarge, an auditory hallucination. At trial, he dismissed his attorneys and represented himself dressed in a purple cowboy outfit while trying, through his incoherent defense, to subpoena the Messiah, John F. Kennedy and the Pope, among others.
Lawyers in the courtroom described him as "scary" and "trance-like." Two jurors, according to Mother Jones magazine, said they voted for Panetti's death because his behavior was so frightening that they wanted to make sure he would never re-enter society, and Texas at the time did not offer life without parole.
It is reminiscent of a study by anthropologist Jane M. Murphy, who wrote about an isolated Inuit community near the Bering Strait that would push people they considered psychopaths off the ice and into the ocean. One man can pose a grave threat in the depths of wilderness. But Texas is no longer part of that wild. We have tamed the West, and our legal system should be tamed as well. Texans have built institutions of justice that can protect society without resorting to death. We have built laboratories and hospitals that can treat the dangerously ill, who respond to a world that only exists within a broken mind. And we have signed a Constitution that prevents the cruel and unusual punishment of executing the mentally incompetent.
There is no denying the horror of Panetti's murder, flailing testimony and dead-eyed gaze. It is the horror of the uncanny - the familiar yet incongruous, like a walking doll animated by some evil spirit. Centuries ago, we very well may have attributed Panetti's actions to some devil. Even today, one cannot help but feel a sense of evil in Panetti's murderous acts. But we can also see his sickness and understand what chemical imbalance can do to a mind. Between 1981 and 1992, Panetti was hospitalized 14 times, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, delusions, hallucinations and manic depression.
While he waits on death row, Panetti believes that his upcoming execution - scheduled for Dec. 3 - is a satanic plot to prevent him from preaching the Gospel.
Yesterday, Texas' Criminal Court of Appeals denied in a 5-4 decision a stay of execution and assessment of his competency. With this decision, Texas also denies the request of Sonja Alvarado, his ex-wife whose parents were killed by Panetti, and who signed a petition calling for his life to be spared.
Judge Elsa Alcala, writing for the dissent, noted that this decision could "result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person."
It now falls on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry to stop the execution and end our state's precarious journey out of civilization and into the wilderness, where our Constitution's protections fall to fear.
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http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/article/Stay-Panetti-s-execution-5917766.php
Stay Panetti’s execution
Express-News Editorial Board : November 25, 2014
Delusions drove Scott Panetti to murder his in-laws in Fredericksburg in 1992. Delusions now swirl around his planned execution on Dec. 3. He believes he will be executed because Satan, through the state of Texas, wants to stop him from preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Panetti was convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to death by a jury. But he represented himself in that trial, which was widely viewed as a farce and a spectacle — not because he wasn’t guilty of the killings, but because he lacked insight into what he had done and the capability to represent himself.
He attempted to call more than 200 witnesses to the stand including John F. Kennedy, the pope and Jesus Christ. He dressed in a cowboy costume, sporting a purple bandana. And yet, the trial went on.
Panetti is a diagnosed schizophrenic with schizoaffective disorder who has not had a competency hearing in seven years. As early as 1986, Panetti began believing he was in a spiritual war with Satan. He once “exorcized” his home, burying furniture in the backyard. He was convinced Satan was inside the furniture.
His crimes were fueled by angry delusions. Urged on by an alter ego, he killed his wife’s parents, Jose and Amanda Alvarado, barging into their home and shooting them with a sawed-off deer rifle. But there is no evidence he has any insight into his mind, and understands what he has done or why he truly is being punished. Even his ex-wife, whose parents were killed by Panetti, has said he is too mentally ill to be put to death.
There have been 518 executions in Texas since 1976. If the state takes someone’s life, it has a moral obligation to make sure that person has appropriate representation and a fair process, something Panetti did not receive with his initial trial.
Perhaps if he had received appropriate representation, he would not be on death row.
There is also a moral obligation to ensure Panetti understands the link between his crime and his punishment, a point clearly in question. William C. Hubbard, president of the American Bar Association, expressed these same concerns.
On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 5-4 to deny his claim that he is too mentally ill to be executed.
Gov. Rick Perry should stay Panetti’s execution so he can undergo a competency hearing. Continuing with this execution without first truly establishing competency, or developing a treatment plan to attempt to establish competency, simply dismisses the complications of severe mental illness and justice.
If the execution is carried out, Panetti will die believing Satan is punishing him for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That would make this execution mindless vengeance.
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Texas' upcoming execution of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man, is unjust
November 26, 2014
The state of Texas plans to execute a man named Scott Panetti on Dec. 3. On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected lawyers' request to delay the execution; Panetti's lawyers argue that their client is too incompetent to be put to death. Panetti has decades of noted mental illness, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia and several involuntary commitments in mental hospitals. Roughly 19 years ago, he murdered his estranged wife’s parents; that much is not up for debate. The issues up for debate are the validity, the constitutionality and the sheer morality behind the decision to put someone to death who knows not what he does.
At his trial, Panetti represented himself. Attempting to echo a character from western films, he donned a purple cowboy suit. He also subpoenaed hundreds of deceased, fictional or outlandish witnesses, including but not limited to the Pope, Jesus Christ, John Kennedy and Anne Bancroft. When he took the stand, he assumed his more cantankerous alter ego, “Sarge,” and began making threats. Some reports claim the jury was so terrified of him that they handed him a death sentence in order to preclude his re-entry into society. (At the time, the option of life without the possibility of parole was absent in Texas.)
The Supreme Court finally overturned Panetti’s death sentence in a 2007 case bearing his name, ruling that mentally ill inmates can’t be executed unless they understand why. However, in its style of judicial restraint, the justices merely remanded the case to the lower courts, with instructions to more strictly judge his competency for execution. Despite multiple medical professionals reaching the same conclusion that Panetti is severely mentally ill, Texas went ahead and cleared him for execution again nonetheless.
All this is not to say that Panetti is not culpable for his actions. He understands, at a very basic level, the difference between right and wrong. But he does not fully understand that the murder is directly connected to his impending death at the hands of state officials, which defies the standard the Supreme Court rightly set. Panetti believes the government is attempting to martyr him for preaching his version of the gospel.
We believe that, in all cases, capital punishment is an immoral, unconstitutional and indefensible deprivation of life from this country’s denizens. Perhaps that is why the United States is the last country in the western world to not abolish the barbaric and medieval act. But whatever your impressions on capital punishment in general, the killing of a severely mentally ill man who does not understand the accusations levied against him or the reality he lives in comes perilously close to simple murder.
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Top Texas appeals court refuses to stop execution next week of inmate said to be delusional
November 25, 2014
HOUSTON — The state's top criminal court has refused to halt next week's scheduled execution of a convicted killer whose lawyers contend is severely delusional.
A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-4 Tuesday to reject an appeal from lawyers for 56-year-old Scott Panetti. He's scheduled for lethal injection Dec. 3 for fatally shooting his in-laws 22 years ago at their Fredericksburg home.
Gillespie County prosecutors argued the appeal was improper and that the court had no jurisdiction. Attorneys want additional time and experts to examine Panetti's mental competence for execution.
Judge Elsa Alcala, in a dissenting opinion joined by three other judges, said the court needed to more liberally consider the appeal because it involved constitutional issues about executing the mentally ill.
Panetti's lawyers say they'll contest the ruling.
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Texas appeals court declines to cancel Scott Panetti's execution
By Meg Kissinger, November 25, 2014
Hayward native Scott Panetti narrowly missed having his execution canceled Tuesday when a court in Texas ruled 5-4 to deny his claim that he is too mentally ill to be put to death.
Panetti's lawyers say they will challenge the decision. They have another appeal pending and are expected to file appeals once in federal court after all state options are exhausted.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the supreme state authority for criminal cases, denied Panetti's request to be re-evaluated to see if he is sane enough to understand why he is being executed. Panetti, 56, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 3 for the shooting deaths of his estranged wife's parents in August of 1992.
The case is being closely watched by mental health and human rights experts. More than 80,000 people have signed a petition for clemency, noting that Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and was hospitalized more than a dozen times before the killings.
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/ron-paul-death-penalty-scott-panetti-texas
Can Ron Paul and Conservative Evangelicals Save a Texas Death-Row Inmate?
A rightwing crusade aims to stop the execution of Scott Panetti, a mentally ill convicted murder.
By Stephanie Mencimer, November 26, 2014
When Scott Panetti represented himself in a Texas capital murder case in 1995, wearing a purple cowboy suit and calling himself "Sarge," he called as a witness a veterinarian who once lived across the street from him. Panetti questioned the vet about the time he euthanized Little Blue, Panetti's old dog. The episode had nothing to do with the case. Other witnesses Panetti tried to call to the stand: John F. Kennedy and Jesus.
Trial transcripts, medical records, and expert witness testimony have documented that Panetti suffers from severe schizophrenia. He believes Texas is going to execute him to stop him from preaching the gospel—not because he shaved his head, donned camo fatigues, and shot and killed his in-laws in 1992. The Supreme Court has declared that executing the mentally ill violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but several Texas and federal courts—including the US Supreme Court—have reviewed Panetti's case, and each one has ruled that the state can proceed with his lethal injection. Now, with Panetti’s execution scheduled for December 3, the only thing that might save him is a national campaign being mounted by conservatives, including former Texas Republican congressman and libertarian icon Ron Paul.
Panetti's lawyers have filed a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, which can recommend that Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, commute Panetti's sentence to life in prison without parole. That petition has received an outpouring of support from conservatives and evangelicals. In addition to Paul, this group includes Jay Sekulow, an evangelical lawyer famous for pressing religious liberties cases on behalf of social conservatives.
Paul's involvement in the case is unusual. Last year, he publicly endorsed a new advocacy group, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, saying, "I believe that support for the death penalty is inconsistent with libertarianism and traditional conservatism." This was the result of a years-long evolution. In 2007, Paul noted, "There was a time I simply stated that I supported the death penalty. Now my views are not so clearly defined...After years spent in Washington, I have become more aware than ever of the government’s ineptness and the likelihood of its making mistakes. I no longer trust the U.S. government to invoke and carry out a death sentence under any conditions." But Paul at that time didn’t believe that the federal government should interfere with state executions.
Now that he's out of office, Paul’s gone further, and he has come out firmly against Panetti's execution. Heather Beaudoin, the coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, says that this is the first time she's aware of that Paul has weighed in publicly against an execution.
It’s also unusual for conservative Christians to support a clemency petition like Panetti's. The last time evangelicals really rallied en masse to prevent a pending execution was in 1998, in the case of Karla Faye Tucker, who converted to Christianity in prison and became a conservative cause celebre. Despite the pleadings of evangelicals such as Pat Robertson, the Texas governor at the time, George W. Bush, went ahead with the execution, and Tucker became the first woman executed in the state since 1863.
The Panetti case is different. His religious fervor is the product of a brain disorder, and the evangelicals' opposition to his execution is not related to his religious proclamations. It is more of a reflection of the shift in public attitudes regarding capital punishment that has been driven by the growing number of exonerations of death-row inmates, the high number of mentally ill and disabled people sentenced to die, and the inefficient and expensive administration of capital punishment. "A lot of conservatives are late to realize that the whole criminal justice system is part of the government," says Richard Viguerie, a prominent conservative leader and an ardent opponent of the death penalty.
Religious conservatives are increasingly joining those who would like to see the end of the death penalty, citing their movement’s commitment to a "culture of life," which has traditionally focused primarily on restricting abortion. Conservative evangelicals, says Beaudoin, have been animated by the Panetti case over the past few weeks. Her outfit has opposed other executions, but, she says, the Panetti case has hit a nerve. She has been surprised by the number of influential Christians who have signed on to the clemency petition, especially Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Coalition, who's on Time magazine's 2013 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who now runs a pro-life ministry for former abortion clinic employees, wrote an editorial in the Dallas News calling on Texas to spare Panetti.
"This is the largest outpouring of support on a death penalty case we've seen from evangelicals, and you can see why, given the ridiculous nature of this case," Beaudoin says. "A lot of folks who signed this [clemency] letter might have given pause about signing on to a letter opposing the death penalty generally, but they think we have no business executing Scott Panetti." She adds, "As Christians, we're called protect the most vulnerable. And there's just no question that Scott Panetti is in that number as someone who's suffered from severe mental illness. We all want to keep society safe, but I'm thankful there are other ways to do that than executing people."
But can conservatives and evangelicals persuade Perry? The Texas governor is deeply tied to the religious right, which enthusiastically backed his gaffe-heavy run for the White House in 2012. So he might want to be sympathetic to their crusade. And as a lame-duck governor, Perry doesn't have to worry about his re-election prospects in the state that leads the nation in executions. Moreover, Perry has joined with other conservatives in pushing to reform the criminal justice system, particularly regarding harsh mandatory minimum drug sentencing.
Yet Perry has overseen more executions than any American governor in recent history—10 this year—and he has never shown any qualms about executing the mentally ill before. The most notable instance of this was the case of Kelsey Patterson, a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
In 1992, a few days after his brother tried to have him committed to a mental hospital, Patterson shot and killed two people. After the shooting, Patterson stripped down to his socks and paced the street naked and shouting until he was arrested. During his trial, Patterson insisted that the military had implanted a device in his ear and was controlling him. The Texas pardons board recommended Perry spare Patterson's life, but Perry ignored the board and went forward with Patterson's execution anyway.
Perry is now pondering joining his party’s 2016 presidential fray, and there’s no telling if a grant of clemency for Panetti could provide political fodder in what is expected to be a crowded field of candidates. But the Panetti case could give Perry the opportunity to show a more compassionate side of himself to an American electorate in which support for the death penalty is at an all-time low.
Young people, and young evangelical Christians in particular, are moving away from supporting capital punishment in large numbers. A poll conducted last summer by the Barna Group, a Christian public opinion research firm, found that about half of practicing Christian baby boomers support the death penalty, but only 23 percent of Christian millennials felt that way. (Barna also asked the survey-takers, "What would Jesus do?" and found that only 5 percent of Americans—and 10 percent of practicing Christians—thought Jesus would support the death penalty.)
"The younger generation is finding that it doesn't make a lot of sense to say we're pro-life and then be out front promoting executions," says Beaudoin, who at 30, is one of those pro-life/anti-death penalty millennials.
Perry's options in Panetti's case are limited, as a pro-death penalty bias is baked into Texas law. Unlike many other states, Perry doesn't have the power to single-handedly commute Panetti's sentence to life in prison without parole. He can only do so if the pardons board recommends clemency, which the board has only done only four times since 1982 regarding an imminent execution. He can ignore a recommendation for clemency and move forward with an execution, but he can't ignore a denial of a clemency petition and on his own spare a life. But Perry appointed all the sitting board members. It seems likely that if he urged them to advise clemency for Panetti, they would take him seriously.
Perry can unilaterally grant Panetti a one-time 30-day stay of execution, which Panetti's lawyers have requested so that he can have a new mental competency evaluation. Panetti hasn't been evaluated by mental health professionals in seven years, and his lawyers argue that new documents disclosed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice indicate that his mental health has deteriorated significantly since then. (He now believes a listening device has been implanted in his tooth and that "Satanic graffiti" has been appearing on the walls of his cell.)
If such an evaluation finds Panetti doesn't have a rational understanding of his impending execution, Panetti can ask the court to stay his execution and hold a hearing to evaluate whether he's sane enough to be executed. So far, all of the Texas state courts have denied the request for a new competency evaluation, including the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which rejected Panetti's appeal Tuesday in a 5-4 vote. But the dissent in that decision suggests that Panetti's case is prompting serious debate, even among Texas's conservative judges. In her dissent, Perry appointee and Republican judge Elsa Alcala said the decision, at worst, "will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person."
Gabriel Salguero, the president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and one of 50 evangelical leaders who signed a letter asking Perry and the board of pardons to spare Panetti, says that Perry is well aware that evangelicals—and Latino evangelicals in particular—are a fast-growing demographic nationwide. But, he adds, this decision is "not about politics. It's about morality and what kind of country we want to be." He believes saving Panetti is "an easy lift…We don't execute people with mental illness, just as we don't execute minors." And he hopes Perry will come around: "We will be entering the Advent season, the high holy days. It seems to me the right message is to talk about saving lives. Maybe we'll get an Advent miracle in Texas."
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/25/texas-execution-scott-panetti-mentally-ill
‘Floridly psychotic' Texas inmate's storied history of mental illness likely won't halt his execution
Barring the success of last-minute appeals, Scott Panetti, 56, will be executed on 3 December despite clear evidence that he is insane and his original trial was a farce
By Tom Dart, November 25, 2014
Scott Panetti woke early on the morning of 8 September, 1992. He shaved his head, dressed in camouflage gear, sawed off a shotgun, grabbed a rifle and a knife belt and drove to the house in the Texas hill country where his estranged wife, Sonja, was staying with her family.
He broke in, cornered Amanda and Joseph Alvarado and asked Sonja who she wanted to die first: her, or her parents. Panetti shot the couple dead in front of his wife and their three-year-old daughter then took them to a cabin and held them hostage until he was arrested.
The terrible eruption of violence was the nadir in Panetti’s long history of mental illness. Now, 22 years later, and amid widespread protests, the state of Texas appears hell-bent on carrying out the ultimate punishment for his crime. Barring the success of last-minute appeals, the 56-year-old will be executed on 3 December despite clear evidence that he is insane and his original trial was a farce.
‘A judicial disaster’
Panetti’s attorneys are seeking for his sentence to be commuted to life, or at least for a reprieve to provide time and resources to show that he is incompetent to be executed.
On Tuesday, the Texas court of criminal appeals, by a 5-4 vote, denied the attorneys’ latest petition for a stay of execution. Panetti’s lawyers had argued that executing a severely mentally ill inmate would violate the eighth and fourteenth amendments and cited new research showing that death sentences are rarely imposed on the mentally-ill and that no “guilty but mentally ill” capital defendant has been sentenced to death in 20 years. As a result of this national consensus, they argued, it would be unconstitutional to impose a punishment that “offends contemporary standards of decency” and as unreasonable to execute the mentally ill as it would be to put to death the intellectually disabled.
Earlier this month, the attorneys sent a petition for clemency to Texas governor Rick Perry and the Texas board of pardons and paroles (PDF). The appeal describes Panetti as “floridly psychotic” and calls his case a “judicial disaster” where “evidence of his incompetency runs like a fissure through every proceeding”. They are awaiting responses.
A Wisconsin-born US Navy veteran, Panetti was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, when he was 20. In the 1980s and early 90s he was hospitalised more than a dozen times for mental illnesses including hallucinations and paranoid delusions. His first wife told hospital workers that he was obsessed with exorcising the devil from his house, a process that involved burying furniture in his yard and nailing the curtains shut. He and Sonja Alvarado had separated about a month before he murdered her parents. She had taken out a protective order against him less than a week before his rampage.
A jury at a competency hearing was unable to decide if he was fit to stand trial, but a different jury at a second hearing decided that he could. Panetti rejected a plea offer of a life sentence and chose to represent himself at his trial in 1995, evidently because of a suspicion of attorneys.
Off medication after experiencing some sort of religious epiphany, at trial he dressed in a purple cowboy suit, made a threatening gesture at the jury and tried to subpoena Jesus, the Pope, John F Kennedy and the actor Anne Bancroft.
Panetti frequently indulged in ostentatious, incoherent, nonsensical ramblings, such as a monologue to prospective jurors about Native Americans and his “Injun beliefs as a shaman”, court transcripts show. He claimed the murders were committed by his alter ego, “Sarge”.
He took the stand in his own defence for wildly unfocused testimony that included his role in a school play, his job artificially inseminating cattle, taking drugs, being a rodeo cowboy, stories from his time in the Navy and when he once killed a rattlesnake.
He then assumed the persona of Sarge when testifying about the killings: “Sonja, Joe, Amanda kitchen. Joe bayonet, not attacking. Sarge not afraid, not threatened. Sarge not angry, not mad. Sarge, boom, boom. Sarge, boom, boom, boom, boom. Sarge, boom, boom.
“Sarge is gone. No more Sarge. Sonja and Birdie. Birdie and Sonja. Joe, Amanda lying kitchen, here, there, blood. No leave. Scott, remember exactly what Sarge did. Shot the lock. Walked in the kitchen, Sonja, where’s Birdie? Sonja here. Joe, bayonet, door, Amanda. Boom, boom, blood, blood. Demons. Ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, Lord, oh, you.”
In an affidavit, S Preston Douglass Jr, a defence attorney fired by Panetti, said: “After the verdict, I spoke with a couple of jurors who had sat in Scott’s case … they basically told me the same thing. They said that if Scott had been represented by attorneys that he would not have received the death penalty. [One juror] told me that the goofy things Scott said and did scared the jury. They knew he had a long-term mental history, but because he scared them they voted for death.”
Panetti would be the 279th inmate executed during Perry’s tenure
Life without parole was not an option for Texas capital murder juries until 2005. Soon after his conviction, Panetti was found incompetent to waive counsel for the appeals process.
He was a day away from being executed in February 2004, until a court intervened to grant a stay. In 2007 the US supreme court reviewed the case and underlined that inmates cannot be executed if they do not understand the reason for their impending death, as well as noting several errors made by the state court and the vagueness of the Texas standard to define insanity.
Court evidence suggests Panetti believes that Texas authorities are part of a Satanic plot and plan to kill him to stop him from preaching the Gospel. Appeals courts have concurred with expert opinions that Panetti is seriously mentally ill, yet have found him competent to be executed on the basis that he is aware he is to be put to death and has some degree of rational understanding as to why.
“Texas courts are hostile to the idea that an individual once sentenced to death should not have that sentence carried out,” Kathryn Kase, one of his lawyers, told the Guardian, adding that courts have failed to understand the complex nature of paranoid schizophrenia. “Scott Panetti is not incompetent all of the time,” she said. “He is competent one day, incompetent the next.”
Panetti would be the 279th Texas inmate executed during Perry’s tenure. The possible Republican presidential candidate, who is stepping down as governor in January after 14 years, has very rarely used his power to grant clemency or reprieves. In 2001, he vetoed a bill passed by the Texas legislature that would have banned the execution of the mentally disabled.
In 2004, he rejected the pardons and paroles board’s recommendation of clemency for Kelsey Patterson, a paranoid schizophrenic man who heard voices and believed the military had planted a control device inside his head.
The case could ultimately be appealed again to the supreme court, which declined to hear it without explanation last month. Activists, mental health organisations, prominent legal figures, politicians and religious groups have urged Texas not to go ahead with the execution, which will be via lethal injection using drugs from an unknown source. On 13 November this year, 30 people, including distinguished lawyers, former judges and Mark White, a former Texas governor, signed a letter to Perry and the board asking that Panetti’s sentence be commuted to life.
They wrote: “Our concern is that the criminal justice system recognizes both the diminished culpability of a person with severe mental illness, like Mr Panetti, and the absence of penological value in carrying out a death sentence in a case of such extreme mental illness.”
Panetti’s lawyers contend that recent documents show his health has deteriorated since his most recent competency hearing nearly seven years ago, raising the claim that his execution would be “cruel and unusual” in violation of the eighth amendment of the US constitution.
Documents filed by his lawyers indicate that his behaviour has become increasingly aggressive, including throwing urine out of his cell in November last year and telling a prison officer he will “smite you for your wickedness”. He filed a complaint with prison officials claiming that “Satanic graffiti” had appeared on the walls of his cell. Panetti’s lawyers have not made him available for media interviews.
During a visit with Kase earlier this month, according to one court filing, he told her that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had implanted a listening device in one of his teeth and placed surveillance equipment inside decorative Halloween pumpkins in the prison’s dental surgery.
His attorneys also argue that their efforts have been hampered by the failure of Texas officials to provide formal notification of the execution date. It was set in mid-October but the attorneys claim they only discovered it when they read a media report at the end of the month. They say this gives them too little time to source and analyse prison documents and to meet court deadlines.
Kase said that since the 1980s authorities have too often locked up the mentally ill in prisons rather than treating them in specialist institutions. “Our jails and prisons in the US have become the primary place for people suffering from mental illness,” she said. “Jail only knows how to incarcerate, it doesn’t know how to treat…. I have no doubt that there are other Scott Panettis out there.”
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-front-center-joel-hunter-20141125-story.html
Pastor 'boldly' opposes execution: Front & Center
November 25, 2014
In an interview, Pastor Joel Hunter argues Texas shouldn't execute a mentally ill inmate for murder.
Pastor Joel Hunter agrees with lawyers for a Texas murderer that his execution would cross a moral line.
That Scott Panetti killed his in-laws with a hunting rifle is indisputable. So is the fact that Texas plans next month to execute the man with a lengthy history of schizophrenia who defended himself at his 1995 trial dressed in cowboy togs and summoned John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ to testify.
Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, joined over 50 evangelical leaders who signed a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry decrying Panetti's execution. In an email interview, Hunter told the Editorial Board why he got involved. Excerpts follow. A longer version is online at OrlandoSentinel.com/opinion.
Q: The U.S. Supreme Court has frowned on executing the mentally ill. Why do you think Texas is pressing ahead on Panetti's execution?
A: Texas is a state that has not been sparing in executing those sentenced to death, but this case highlights the complexities of trying to implement the death penalty. Most Americans — even those who support the death penalty — do not want to see those with mental illness or intellectual disability executed. But what counts as mental illness or intellectual disability is debated, and we've seen those debates play out in both legislatures and the courts. In the Panetti case, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and leading mental-health professionals all have concluded that Panetti is severely mentally ill and, as a result, should not be executed. Unfortunately, so far Texas has not heeded the advice of the nation's and Texas' leading mental-health organizations and professionals.
Q: Panetti's lawyers say his execution "would cross a moral line." Do you agree?
A: Yes, executing Panetti would cross a moral line. Many of us have friends and family with mental illness, and understand that they do not always have full control over their actions. Their illness can render them "not themselves" in significant ways. We as a society are judged by how we treat the most vulnerable — the poor, the disabled, those with mental illness and intellectual disability. Jesus prayed from the cross, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." Executing Panetti would go against Christ's plea, for the implication of an execution is that we're willing to discard the life of the disabled rather than protect it.
The mental-health community has been very clear that Panetti suffers from a 30-year history of schizophrenia. He was hospitalized more than a dozen times for psychosis and delusions in the years leading up to his tragic crime. He represented himself at trial wearing a cowboy suit. Given his condition and questions about his competence, execution would serve no constructive purpose but would rather destroy the life of a vulnerable individual. We do not believe God would condone this act of execution.
Q: How much should mental illness weigh in the tension between justice and culpability?
A: That's a difficult question. Mental-health experts and criminologists would agree that it can be difficult to find the right balance between justice and culpability. Obviously, we can't throw up our hands and say that it is impossible to make these judgments, because it is important to hold people accountable for crimes that they commit. We have to keep grappling with this issue and making sure that, as science and our understanding of mental health advance, this knowledge continually informs our criminal justice system. In Panetti's case it is clear that with his long well-documented struggles with severe mental illness, execution would be an unjust response.
Q: If not execution, how should Panetti be punished for his heinous crime?
A: Imprisonment is punishment, and it is a more appropriate response to the crimes that Panetti committed. Texas can incarcerate him and keep society secure without having to resort to an execution. Obviously, with the crime he committed and his long history of mental illness, life imprisonment would be a just sentence.
Q: Generally, what's your view of the death penalty?
A: I have moral objections to the death penalty, knowing the fallibility of our justice system and my being completely pro-life. The death penalty is ultimately incompatible with promoting a culture that recognizes the sacredness of all human life. Our nation would like to claim God's protection, but yet if we do not protect those who are most vulnerable, or who may later be found to be innocent, that is a difficult claim to make. I understand why other moral people would disagree with me on this issue, but for me, the death penalty in general is unnecessary, not a deterrent, and does not promote a culture of life and hope.
Q: Are you and the other evangelical leaders who got involved in this case in a ticklish situation, given that Panetti insists Satan is using Texas to prevent him from preaching the Gospel on death row?
A: We will be criticized for our views, but God calls on us to boldly and unapologetically defend life, which is exactly what we are doing in this case. Regarding Panetti's relationship with God, I cannot judge — only God knows the depths of his heart. Certainly, when you read the Bible, you will see that God redeemed people — David, Moses, Paul — after they had committed awful crimes. The heart of the Gospel message is that no one is beyond redemption, and that basic truth applies to those on death row.
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/texas-court-refuses-to-stop-execution-of-schizophrenic-man
Texas Court Refuses To Stop Execution Of Schizophrenic Man
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay of execution on Tuesday for Scott Panetti, a man who says he is being killed for preaching the Gospel.
Tasneem Nashrulla, November 25, 2014
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to stop the execution of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man, scheduled to die on Dec. 3.
The court, in a 5-4 ruling Tuesday, denied a motion to stay Panetti’s execution and appoint new counsel and mental health experts to assess his competency to be executed. In its ruling, the court said it did not have jurisdiction to review the trial court’s ruling that previously denied his execution.
Panetti’s volunteer attorneys from the Texas Defender Service had filed the motion on Nov. 20 to argue that Panetti’s deteriorating mental health was sufficient to prove he needed a stay of execution to appoint counsel and to gather funds required to hire an expert and an investigator to determine his competency.
According to the appeal, Panetti’s worsening mental illness caused him to hear voices, and to believe a listening device was implanted in his tooth and that he was being executed because Texas wanted him to “shut up” about death row corruption and prevent him from preaching the Gospel.
In her dissent to the ruling, Judge Elsa Alcala wrote that the court was depriving Panetti of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims.
“At worst, this Court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person,” she wrote.
Panetti’s attorneys argue that he has suffered severe mental illness for more than 30 years, before he was convicted of killing his wife’s parents in 1995.
Panetti has been hospitalized several times for psychosis and delusions and was involuntarily committed for homicidal behavior. In 1986, Social Security deemed him disable and deserving of benefits based on his schizophrenia.
His attorney Kathryn Kase said in a statement that Panetti has not had a competency hearing in seven years.
Despite these facts, Texas continues to pursue the execution of a man with an incurable, devastating mental illness that profoundly affected the crime, his trial and his death sentence. Mr. Panetti’s serious mental illness has infected every stage of his case. He is not the worst of the worst for whom the death penalty is intended.
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http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/25/scott-panetti-sentence.html
Stay of execution denied for man described as 'severely mentally ill'
Scott Panetti is due to be executed on Dec 3 despite insistences from his attorneys that he has no understanding of why
November 25, 2014 3:30PM ET
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has denied a stay of execution for a death row inmate whose attorneys contend is so delusional he cannot understand why he was convicted and believes his death sentence is part of "spiritual warfare."
Scott Panetti, 56, was recently scheduled for lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas on Dec. 3, prompting his attorneys to file for a stay on the grounds that their client’s psychological condition had deteriorated significantly since his last competency hearing in 2007.
But in a narrow 5-4 vote, the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on Tuesday to deny the motion on jurisdictional grounds.
Panetti, a Wisconsin native, was convicted of fatally shooting his in-laws, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, at their Fredericksburg home 22 years ago in front of his estranged wife and young children. His wife was living with her parents and a week earlier had obtained a court order to keep Panetti away.
But Panetti has a long history of mental problems that predates the murder, including being hospitalized for mental illness 13 times. His case has been to the U.S. Supreme Court at least three times, most recently in October when the justices refused to review his latest appeal.
State attorneys have argued Panetti exaggerates some of his symptoms to avoid execution.
His trial judge assigned Panetti a standby attorney after he chose to be his own lawyer at his 1995 trial, where he wore a purple cowboy outfit, flipped a coin to select a juror and wanted to subpoena the Pope, Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy as witnesses.
A day before he was to die in 2007, the Supreme Court stopped Panetti's scheduled execution for further review by lower courts but stopped short of overturning his sentence.
That decision, Panetti vs. Quarterman, ruled that it was not enough for a defendant to be aware he was going to be executed — a standard Panetti satisfies — but that he must also have a “rational understanding” of why he was sentenced to death. In other words, the retributive principle underpinning capital punishment might have no relevance in the case of someone as severely mentally ill as Panetti.
But the court did not set specific guidelines for whether that condition applied to Panetti, who has said he believes the true reason for his execution was “spiritual warfare” between “the demons and the forces of the darkness and God and the angels and the forces of light.”
Kathryn Kase, one of the defense attorneys, reacted to Tuesday’s ruling in a statement, noting that her client’s mental state has only declined further. Panetti is “hearing voices, believes that a listening device has been implanted in his tooth and that the State wants him to ‘shut up’ about corruption on death row and stop him from preaching the Gospel.”
“Despite these facts,” she wrote, “Texas continues to pursue the execution of a man with an incurable, devastating mental illness that profoundly affected the crime, his trial and his death sentence.”
In a strongly worded dissent to Tuesday’s decision, Judge Elsa Alcala wrote: “At worst, this Court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.”
Capital punishment remains legal in 32 states, though many of those have placed a moratorium on the practice. Texas has executed more people than any other state — more than 500 since 1978.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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ttp://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/25/court-declines-stay-panettis-execution/
Court Declines to Stay Panetti's Execution
By Jim Malewitz, Nov. 25, 2014
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected a request to delay the looming execution of a schizophrenic death row inmate.
In a 5-4 decision handed down Tuesday, the court cited jurisdictional grounds in declining to stay Scott Louis Panetti’s execution, scheduled for December 3.
Panetti’s attorneys argue he is too incompetent to be legally put to death.
The Wisconsin native was sentenced to death for the 1992 shooting deaths of his in-laws, Joe Gaitan Alvarado, Jr. and Amanda Carrion Alvarado of Kerr County. At the time, Panetti – who represented himself at trial and dressed up in a cowboy suit in court – was a diagnosed schizophrenic and collected federal disability checks because he could not work.
The 56-year-old’s mental health is deteriorating, his attorneys say, and his recent paranoid delusions have included believing that someone is putting “Satanic graffiti” on his cell walls, and that state officials are watching him through pumpkin decorations at the Polunsky Unit where he is detained.
But the appeals court ruled that it couldn’t revisit a lower court’s refusal to grant a stay because his attorneys had not filed a proper “Article 46.05" motion “on or after the 20th day” before the scheduled execution.
On November 14, Panetti’s attorneys filed a motion asking for more time and expert help to “provide a meaningful opportunity” to prepare the Article 46.05 motion, which asks a court to reconsider whether an inmate is fit for execution.
“He has made a colorable showing that he is not competent to be executed,” they argued, but couldn’t meet the legal threshold without more resources.
But the appeals court on Tuesday said its was “deprived of jurisdiction” to weigh in.
“No motions for rehearing will be entertained, and the Clerk’s Office is instructed to issue mandate immediately,” the majority wrote.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Elsa Alcala said she disagreed with the majority’s “overly formalistic interpretation.”
“This court, at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims,” she wrote. “At worst, this court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.”
Kathryn Kase, Panetti’s attorney and executive director of Texas Defender Service, said she agreed with Alcala.
“Texas continues to pursue the execution of a man with an incurable, devastating mental illness that profoundly affected the crime, his trial and his death sentence,” she said in a statement. “Mr. Panetti’s serious mental illness has infected every stage of his case.”
The ruling is the latest twist in Panetti’s 22-year legal saga.
In 2004, he was granted a stay the day before his scheduled execution. In 2007, one of his appeals made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that mentally ill inmates can be executed only if they understand what is about to happen and why. Because Panetti's competency has not been assessed for years, his attorneys claim, there’s no way to know if he meets that test.
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http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-11-28/deathwatch-executing-the-mentally-and-physically-ill/
Deathwatch: Executing the Mentally (and Physically) Ill
Texas gets ready to execute a schizophrenic man
BY Chase Hoffberger, November 28, 2014
Should the state of Texas proceed with the execution of Scott Panetti on Wednesday, Dec. 3, it will be ending the life of a man now better known for the manner in which he defended himself on trial than for the crime that put him on death row. Panetti was sentenced to death in Sept. 1995 for the 1992 murder of his estranged wife's parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, but the legal merry-go-round he's endured since being convicted has spun out over 19 years and multiple courts (including two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court), sparking national debate about the mental competence standard for executions.
Panetti, 56, had a long history of mental illness by the time he killed the Alvarados. After being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, he was hospitalized more than 12 times between 1981 and 1992, and frequently acted out. In 1986, he slashed the walls of his home with a knife and buried furniture in his backyard in an attempt to exorcise advancing demons.
In the first days of September 1992, his wife Sonja, by then living with her parents, tried unsuccessfully to turn Panetti's guns over to the police after a fight between the couple. (The cops said they had no legal right to confiscate the firearms.) A few days later, Panetti shaved his head, dressed himself in military fatigues, and drove to Sonja's parents' house in Fredericksburg. There, he shot both Joe and Amanda Alvarado at close range with a rifle, and then ran off with Sonja and their infant daughter to a bunkhouse. Caught in a standoff with the police, Panetti released the two, and eventually surrendered, declaring that "Sarge" – later identified as a recurring auditory hallucination – was responsible for the murders.
After two hearings in 1994 to determine his mental competency, Panetti fired his attorneys and represented himself throughout his brief Sept. 1995 trial. He infamously dressed in a purple cowboy suit and subpoenaed upwards of 200 people – including Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy, and Anne Bancroft. He cross-examined his alter-ego ("Sarge"), scribbled ink over important legal documents and medical records, and at one point berated a prospective jury member about having "Indian blood." The trial lasted eight days. After two hours of deliberation, a jury found Panetti guilty and recommended capital punishment.
Immediate appeals of his conviction were denied, and in 2003 Panetti received an execution date of Feb. 5, 2004. His attorneys filed a motion for a stay of execution, claiming that their client was mentally incompetent to be executed. But two mental health experts appointed by Kerr Co. District Judge Stephen Ables declared that Panetti was, in fact, competent enough for death (Ables ruled Panetti had "the ability to understand the reason he is to be executed"). Upon review, federal District Judge Sam Sparks found the state court's reasoning "constitutionally inadequate" but ultimately ruled against Panetti, citing the 5th Circuit of Appeals' "test for competency to be executed," which requires a person "know no more than the fact of his impending execution and the factual predicate for the execution."
In 2007, Panetti's case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority determined that condemned inmates must have some "rational understanding" of why they're being executed, and sent the case back to the district court for a fuller consideration of Panetti's mental state. Judge Sparks ruled that Panetti was sane enough to be executed. A second appeal to the 5th Circuit proved unsuccessful in Aug. 2013. Early last month, the Supreme Court refused to consider a final appeal. A state district judge signed a warrant on Oct. 16 to set a Dec. 3 execution date. Panetti's attorney Kathryn Kase learned of the final decision when she read about it in the newspaper.
Kase filed an emergency court motion on Nov. 3, requesting that Panetti, who hasn't been evaluated in seven years, receive a final examination of his mental state. On Nov. 20, Kase and fellow attorney Gregory Wiercioch filed a motion asking that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halt Panetti's execution due to his incompetency. On Nov. 25, that motion was denied. In recent weeks, former congressman Ron Paul and former Texas governor Mark White (who oversaw 19 executions himself), in addition to many other health officials and Christian leaders, have stepped forward to oppose the execution. A petition started by Panetti's sister asking for clemency has accumulated more than 77,000 signatures. If their efforts are unsuccessful, Panetti will become the 12th inmate executed this year, and the 520th since the reinstatement of Texas' death penalty in 1976.
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http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Texas-highest-court-upholds-scheduled-5917853.php
Texas’ highest court upholds scheduled execution in 5-4 split
By Michelle Casady, November 25, 2014
Texas’ highest criminal court on Tuesday in a 5-4 decision narrowly dismissed an appeal filed on behalf of condemned inmate Scott Louis Panetti on jurisdictional grounds.
Panetti, diagnosed as a schizophrenic in 1978, was convicted of the 1992 shooting deaths of his parents-in-law at their home in Fredericksburg and is set to be executed Dec. 3.
The motion filed by his volunteer attorneys requested a stay or modification of his execution date, and that funds be authorized for the appointment of counsel and hiring of mental-health experts to assess his incompetency claim. They argue that Panetti’s condition has deteriorated and he doesn’t understand the reason for his planned execution, which would make his execution a violation of the eighth amendment.
The majority of the appeals court judges wrote that they didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the motion because it wasn’t a 46.05 pleading — the competency to be executed article — but rather a motion stating competency to be executed can not be proven without the resources requested.
“But appellant has not filed an Article 46.05 pleading, and he has not pointed to any statute that gives this Court jurisdiction to review the trial court’s ruling on a freestanding motion such as the one he did file.”
In a dissenting opinion authored by Judge Elsa Alcala, she wrote that the dismissal of the appeal based on jurisdictional issues was an “overly formalistic interpretation” of the law.
“Given the constitutional prohibition on executing a mentally incompetent person that is at stake in this case, it is incumbent upon this Court to liberally construe both appellant’s motion... so as to permit appellant’s motion for a stay of execution and consider the merits of his challenge to the trial court’s order.”
She wrote that the Court’s decision “at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating the constitutionally required procedural protections... At worst, this court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.”
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http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-highest-appeals-court-takes-no-action-to-5917946.php
Texas' highest appeals court takes no action to save double-killer from execution
By Allan Turner | November 25, 2014
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Tuesday ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to stay the Dec. 3 execution of Scott Panetti, condemned for the 1992 murders of his mother- and father-in-law in their Texas Hill Country home.
Attorneys for the 56-year-old Panetti asked that his execution be stayed and counsel and mental health experts appointed to further the claim that he is mentally incompetent to be executed. In a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Panetti, justices held that a condemned inmate must have a "rational understanding" of his punishment, not just an awareness that he is to be executed and why.
When 20 years old, Panetti was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. In his initial trial, Panetti represented himself, dressed in a cowboy suit, and attempted to subpoena Jesus Christ.
In the most recent action, Panetti's lawyers on Nov. 20 asked for a stay and experts to assess their client's mental health ‑ they claim he has deteriorated since his last evaluation seven years ago.
They argued they would have filed the petitions earlier, but learned of the pending execution date only after reading about it in the Houston Chronicle.
Kathryn Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Services and one of Panetti's lawyers, said the convicted killer is "hearing voices, believes that a listening device has been implanted in his tooth and that the state wants him to 'shut up' about corruption and death row and stop him from preaching the gospel."
In the 5-4 decision, the state's highest appeals court noted that in their motion, Panetti's lawyers did not "point to any statute that gives the court jurisdiction to review the trial court's ruling."
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Elsa Alcala said the court's action "at best deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating ...constitutionally required protections...At worst, the court's decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person."
Panetti's case has drawn national attention, with the New York Times Sunday editorializing that "A civilized society should not be in the business of executing anybody. But it certainly cannot pretend to be adhering to any morally acceptable standard of culpability if it kills someone like Scott Panetti."
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Texas Appeals Court Won’t Halt Delusional Inmate’s Execution
November 26, 2014
AUSTIN (November 25, 2014) The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Tuesday refused to halt next week’s execution of convicted killer Scott Panetti, 56.
Panetti’s lawyers contend the death row inmate is severely delusional.
A divided appeals court voted 5-4 Tuesday to reject Panetti’s appeal.
He’s scheduled to die next Wednesday evening for the shooting deaths of his in-laws, who were killed 22 years ago at their home in Fredericksburg.
Gillespie County prosecutors argued the appeal was improper and that the court had no jurisdiction.
Defense attorneys want additional time and experts to examine Panetti's mental competence for execution.
Judge Elsa Alcala, in a dissenting opinion joined by three other judges, said the court needed to liberally consider the appeal more liberally because it involved constitutional issues about executing the mentally ill.
Panetti's lawyers say they'll appeal the ruling.
Joe Gaitan Alvarado, Jr., and Amanda Carrion Alvarado, 56, were shot to death in September 1992.
Prosecutors say Panetti who was armed with a 30-06 rifle, forced his way inside the couple’s home, where his wife was staying with the couple's 3-year-old daughter.
They said he attacked his wife and then shot his in-laws after they confronted him.
Then, they said, he kidnapped his wife and daughter and took them to a cabin where he held them at gunpoint before later releasing them.
He told investigators his alter-ego, “Sarge,” was responsible for the killings.
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http://wtexas.com/content/14111091-texas-appeals-court-refuses-take-action-save-double-murderer
Texas appeals court refuses to take action to save double-murderer from execution
By Megan Roberts, November 26, 2014
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday refused to take any action to save murderer Scott Panetti from execution, declaring that staying the execution sentence was out of its jurisdiction.
Condemned for the murders of his mother-in-law and father-in-law in their Texas Hill Country residence in 1992, Panetti is scheduled to be executed on December 3, 2014.
The appeals court jury denied a motion to stay Panetti's execution as well as to appoint new counsel and mental health experts to evaluate his competency to be executed with a 5-4 vote.
The only dissenting vote in the ruling came from Judge Elsa Alcala, who said Panetti was being deprived of a fair chance to litigate his claims.
Judge Alcala wrote in her ruling, "At worst, this Court's decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person."
Attorneys for 56-year-old Panetti requested the court to stay their client's execution, claiming that he is mentally incompetent to be executed. They also claimed that they would have filed the petition earlier, but they learned of the execution date only after reading about it in a recent edition of the Houston Chronicle.
In a 2007 ruling involving Panetti, the U. S. Supreme Court said that a condemned inmate must have a "rational" understanding of his/her punishment, and not just awareness that he/she is to be executed.
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http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/27097/mentally-ill-texas-prisoner-denied-stay-execution
Mentally Ill Texas Prisoner Denied Stay of Execution Again
By Ben Sherman, NOVEMBER 25, 2014
Today, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued the latest refusal to stop the December 3rd execution of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man convicted of murder, by a 5-4 vote. On jurisdictional grounds alone, the court further denied time for a proper psychological evaluation of Panetti, who believed he was in a battle with Satan and off his anti-psychotic medication when he committed the murders. In his capital murder trial, he acted as his own lawyer while wearing a cowboy outfit and trying to call witnesses like JFK and Jesus.
The four-judge dissent, written imploringly by Judge Elsa Alcala, states:
…by declining to construe [Mr. Panetti’s] motion as a pleading to determine his competency under Article 46.05, this Court, at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating the constitutionality required procedural protections recognized in Ford. At worst, this Court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.
Despite Panetti’s clear mental incapacity, the state keeps choosing to blunder ahead towards unconstitutional tragedy. After a district judge denied the stay last week, newspapers and human rights advocates joined the wide coalition of groups already supporting Panetti’s case. The Dallas Morning News argued that killing Panetti isn’t “fitting for a civilized society”.
The New York Times wrote in an editorial:
A civilized society should not be in the business of executing anybody. But it certainly cannot pretend to be adhering to any morally acceptable standard of culpability if it kills someone like Scott Panetti.
The next step for Panetti’s lawyers are not clear currently. With no chance of Rick Perry seeing compassion or morality, Texans, and the country, finds itself watching a hideous death march.
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http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2014/11/ineffective-assistance-of-schi.html
Ineffective Assistance of Schizophrenic Self
By Kent Scheidegger, November 24, 2014 4:38 PM
Continuing with the theme of Bill's post, the State of Texas has scheduled the execution next week of Scott Panetti for the 1995 murder of his wife's parents. The editorial board of the New York Times can't help themselves. Even when their position is basically a reasonable one, they still have to make absurd statements in the process.
During his capital murder trial, at which he was inexplicably allowed to represent himself, Mr. Panetti dressed in a cowboy suit and attempted to subpoena, among others, John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ. A standby lawyer said his behavior was "scary" and "trance-like," and called the trial "a judicial farce."
The word "inexplicably" is just plain ignorant. There is no mystery at all as to why Panetti was allowed to represent himself or who was to blame. The blame lies squarely with the United States Supreme Court in the 1970s and its propensity at that time to make up rights that are not really in the Constitution.
In Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), the Supreme Court said that criminal defendants have a constitutional right to reject counsel and conduct their own defense. Justice Blackmun noted in dissent, "If there is any truth to the old proverb that 'one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client,' the Court by its opinion today now bestows a constitutional right on one to make a fool of himself." In Panetti's case, make that a crazy fool.
The Faretta rule was long understood to be absolute in most jurisdictions, including Texas and the Fifth Circuit. As long as the defendant was competent to stand trial, a very minimal standard, he had the constitutional right to represent himself, no matter how much of a farce he made of the trial. If the trial court denied him that dubious right, the judgment would be reversed on appeal or overturned on habeas corpus. The Texas trial judge was therefore correct, in the sense of following the precedents of both the state and federal courts, in allowing Panetti to represent himself. In Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), we finally got the Court to modify Faretta and recognize that some people are competent to stand trial and assist counsel but not to be their own counsel, see CJLF brief, but 33 years had elapsed and a lot of water had passed under the bridge.
The issue in the courts now, though, is not Panetti's representation at trial but rather whether he is presently too crazy to execute.
There is a centuries-old rule that a person cannot be executed if he is so out of his mind that he does not know that he is being executed and why. This case went to the Supreme Court once before. At that time, CJLF filed a brief to oppose the expansive argument being made on Panetti's behalf that we feared would have opened the door to a lot more such claims. The Court rendered a rather fuzzy 5-4 decision in Panetti's favor saying the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had applied the test too narrowly and requiring a new hearing in the District Court.
The District Judge followed the Supreme Court's direction, held an extensive hearing with multiple experts on both sides, and wrote a 62-page decision. I have retrieved it from the PACER system, in two parts, and uploaded it here and here. Here are the concluding paragraphs:
Panetti's deranged mental state may "wax and wane," but it has continued to a significant degree throughout his incarceration and continues today. While the extent to which Panetti has been manipulating or exaggerating his sentence is unclear, it is not seriously disputable that Panetti suffers from paranoid delusions of some type, and these delusions may well have contributed to his murder of Joe and Amanda Alvarado. However, it is equally apparent from his recorded conversations with his parents that these delusions do not prevent him from having both a factual and rational understanding that he committed these murders, was tried and convicted, and is sentenced to die for them.
Furthermore, his delusions do not prevent his rational understanding of the causal connection between those murders and his death sentence, and he in fact has such an understanding. Panetti's understanding of the causal connection between his crime and his punishment is most clearly demonstrated by his rationally articulated position that the punishment is unjustified: He believes the State should not execute him because he was mentally ill when he committed the murders. This position is based on and necessarily indicates a rational understanding that the State intends to execute him because he committed the murders.
Panetti was mentally ill when he committed his crime and he continues to be mentally ill today. However, he has both a factual and rational understanding of his crime, his impending death, and the causal retributive connection between the two. Therefore, if any mentally ill person is competently executed for his crimes this record establishes it is Scott Panetti.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied review.
The State of Texas will not be violating anything in United States Constitution if it carries out this execution. Whether this is a proper case for executive clemency is a different question. Schizophrenia is certainly a powerful mitigating circumstance. Panetti's trial was not conducted in the manner that would be considered adequate today.
Now that the Supreme Court has corrected its own error, a person in Panetti's mental state would be represented by counsel. I would not consider it an injustice to commute this sentence. Overall, the cause of capital punishment for those murderers most deserving of it would probably be better off by depriving its opponents of an example where schizophrenia was not given the consideration at trial that it deserved.
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http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/2014/11/25/texas-is-premeditating-murder/
Texas Is Premeditating Murder
November 25, 2014
I have several reasons for opposing capital punishment. One is that killing a defenseless person is the most hypocritical way there is to tell people not to kill. Another is that nobody is beyond redemption. Life without possibility of parole protects the public. One of the men with whom I do volunteer work will never breathe free air, but he’s completely dedicated to helping other prisoners learn mental fitness to help them from making the same mistakes that he committed on the way to becoming a serial killer. For this reason, I would not favor the death penalty, even for Republican war criminals, who are responsible for more innocent deaths than any death row prisoner. In addition, far too many innocents have been executed. Furthermore, there is no way to administer it fairly. Texas Republicans know the man they want to kill is insane. But Republicans are the Party of Death.
On Dec. 3, Texas plans to execute an inmate named Scott Panetti, who was convicted in 1995 for murdering his in-laws with a hunting rifle. There is no question that Mr. Panetti committed the murders. There is also no question that he is severely mentally ill, and has been for decades.
During his capital murder trial, at which he was inexplicably allowed to represent himself, Mr. Panetti dressed in a cowboy suit and attempted to subpoena, among others, John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ. A standby lawyer said his behavior was “scary” and “trance-like,” and called the trial “a judicial farce.”
It was not an act. Mr. Panetti, now 56, was first diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 20, and in the years before the murders he was hospitalized several times for delusions and psychotic episodes.
In this respect, he is no different from the estimated 350,000 inmates around the country with mental illness — 10 times the number of people in state psychiatric hospitals. But Mr. Panetti is not just another insane prisoner; his name is synonymous with the Supreme Court’s modern jurisprudence about mental illness on death row. In Panetti v. Quarterman, decided in 2007, the justices held that it is not enough for a defendant simply to be aware that he is going to be executed and why — the previous standard the court had used in permitting the execution of the mentally ill. Rather, he must have a “rational understanding” of why the state plans to kill him.
Noting Mr. Panetti’s “well-documented history of mental illness,” the court held that capital punishment serves no retributive purpose when the defendant’s understanding of crime and punishment is so distorted that it “has little or no relation to the understanding of those concepts shared by the community as a whole.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
The Justices did not declare Panetti insane. They just referred the matter back to the lower court. Texas courts deferred to Republican blood lust, and unless SCOTUS intervenes, Rick Perry will murder this man on 12/3. He and the Texas Republican Party are just drooling for more death.
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Breaking: Today, a 5-4 splintered Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied, on jurisdictional grounds, a stay of execution and appointment of counsel and mental health experts for Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man scheduled for execution on December 3, 2014. Attorneys for Mr. Panetti had appealed a denial from the trial court last week where they sought a stay of execution and appointment of counsel and mental health experts in order to allow for a meaningful opportunity to assess Mr. Panetti’s competency for execution.
In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Elsa Alcala, joined by three other CCA judges, wrote:
“…by declining to construe [Mr. Panetti’s] motion as a pleading to determine his competency under Article 46.05, this Court, at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating the constitutionality required procedural protections recognized in Ford. At worst, this Court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.”
Opinion from the Court of Criminal Appeals: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQb1NUYXpkeGFGbVZrcDYxR3RpZnh2WWpod3ow/view?usp=sharing
Dissent by Judge Alcala: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQLW1Wc3VqOTZfYVJ2c01nYXM3SUR0YnlwamVZ/view?usp=sharing
The following is a statement from Kathryn Kase, co-counsel for Mr. Panetti:
“As Judge Alcala rightly noted, today’s ruling ‘elevates form over substance’ by concluding it lacks jurisdiction in this case. Scott Panetti has suffered from schizophrenia and delusions for three decades. By all accounts, Mr. Panetti’s condition has deteriorated. He is hearing voices, believes that a listening device has been implanted in his tooth and that the State wants him to ‘shut up’ about corruption on death row and stop him from preaching the Gospel. He has not had a competency hearing in seven years. Despite these facts, Texas continues to pursue the execution of a man with an incurable, devastating mental illness that profoundly affected the crime, his trial and his death sentence. Mr. Panetti’s serious mental illness has infected every stage of his case. He is not the worst of the worst for whom the death penalty is intended, and we will challenge today’s ruling which denies him the basic right to contest his competency for execution.”
-Kathryn Kase, attorney for Scott Panetti and Executive Director of Texas Defender Service
-November 25, 2014
The appeal, denied today and filed by Mr. Panetti’s attorneys on November 20, 2014, argues that based on incomplete records recently obtained by Mr. Panetti’s counsel and a recent visit by counsel with Mr. Panetti, Mr. Panetti’s condition has deteriorated. Mr. Panetti is hearing voices, believes that a listening device has been implanted in his tooth and that TDCJ wants him to ‘shut up’ about corruption on death row and to stop him from preaching the Gospel.
Mr. Panetti’s attorneys say that this new information provides sufficient evidence that Mr. Panetti can make a showing that he is not competent for execution and that he is therefore entitled to appointed counsel, funding for a mental health expert and investigator, and a stay of execution so that he can prepare an adequate motion under Art. 46.05 raising his competency for execution claim.
Opening CCA Appeal Brief filed on November 20, 2014: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQYk5pYU5yek1wejdqaUQtLWJsOFpVY1RZVFpN/view?usp=sharing
CCA Motion for Stay of Execution filed on November 20, 2014: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQUGRobFU0UDEtOWRlREk0ekNyblpIdjBDSlBF/view?usp=sharing
The appeal states:
“In denying Scott Panetti’s request for a stay of execution, assistance of counsel, and funding for a mental health expert and investigator, the trial court made precisely the same mistake that Judge Stephen B. Ables made in this case over a decade ago – a mistake that, the United States Supreme Court held, violated bedrock principles
of due process. In Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007), the Supreme Court reached two conclusions that squarely address the issue this Court now faces. First, the Supreme Court found that the preliminary showing of incompetency dictated by Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), is neither onerous nor requires an inmate to
present evidence that answers the Ford inquiries. Instead, the inmate need only make a sufficient showing of possible merit to warrant a more thorough exploration by the court. Second, the Supreme Court confirmed that, once an inmate has made this preliminary showing, the Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment require the court to
give the inmate the tools needed to meaningful develop and present evidence of incompetency. Panetti, 551 U.S. at 952.”
“It is a bitter twist that the trial court is again depriving Mr. Panetti of the due process rights the Supreme Court announced in this very case seven years ago.”
“Mr. Panetti made the preliminary showing that triggers the due process protections of Ford and Panetti. Without first being afforded that rudimentary due process, Mr. Panetti cannot make the requisite Article 46.05 showing. Accordingly, this Court should conclude that Mr. Panetti is constitutionally entitled to a stay of execution, the appointment of counsel, and funding to retain a mental health expert and an investigator to assist him in preparing his Article 46.05 motion.” (pp. 36-38)
CASE BACKGROUND:
Three-Decade History of Severe Psychosis and Delusions
Mr. Panetti has suffered from extreme mental illness for over 30 years. He was hospitalized a dozen times for psychosis and delusions in the six years leading up to the crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.
The first time Mr. Panetti showed signs of being afflicted with a psychotic disorder was in 1978, over 14 years before the crime. During his multiple hospitalizations, doctors diagnosed him with chronic schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and proscribed antipsychotic medication.
In 1986, Mr. Panetti first succumbed to the delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan. In an affidavit his first wife signed to have him involuntarily committed, she testified that he was obsessed with the idea that the devil was in the house. He engaged in a series of bizarre behaviors to exorcize his home, including burying his furniture in the backyard because he thought the devil was in the furniture.
Two years before the crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Panetti was involuntarily committed for homicidal behavior and was found to be suffering from delusions and psychotic religiosity.
The crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death also had the hallmarks of a severely disturbed mind. While off his antipsychotic medication, Mr. Panetti shaved his head and dressed in camouflage fatigues before going to his in-laws’ home and committing the offense for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.
Detailed information about Mr. Panetti’s medical history can be found in this mental illness timeline starting in 1978 that shows how Mr. Panetti’s mental health degenerated over the years, including how in 1986, the Social Security Administration made a determination that Mr. Panetti was so disabled from schizophrenia that he was entitled to government benefits:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1LFfr8Iqz_7c3kzWW5nRFBib1U/view?usp=sharing
Mr. Panetti’s Trial: ‘A Miserable Spectacle’
Despite being a paranoid schizophrenic, Mr. Panetti represented himself at his capital murder trial in 1995. Wearing a cowboy costume with a purple bandana and attempting to call over 200 people to the witness stand, including the Pope, John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ and his own alter ego, Mr. Panetti was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Mr. Panetti’s statements in court, at both the guilt and sentencing phase, were bizarre and incomprehensible. He took the witnesses stand and testified about his own life in excessive and irrelevant detail.
Mr. Panetti announced that he would assume the personality of “Sarge” and recounted the gruesome details of the crime in the third person. He gestured as if pointing a rifle to the jury box (visibly upsetting the jurors) and matter- of-factly imitated the sound of shots being fired.
Fixed Delusion that Texas is Trying to Kill Him for Preaching the Gospel
In 2004, Texas tried to execute Mr. Panetti, but a federal judge court stayed the execution and the United States Supreme Court ultimately found the Fifth Circuit’s standard for determining competency to be executed unconstitutional in Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007). Notwithstanding that decision, Texas continued to contest Mr. Panetti’s competence to be executed. In 2013, the Fifth Circuit again found him competent to be executed – despite the District Court’s findings that he has a severe mental illness and suffers from paranoid delusions.
If his execution date is not withdrawn, he will go to the execution chamber convinced that he is being put to death for preaching the Gospels, not for the murder of his wife’s parents, and the retributive goal of capital punishment will not be served.
Emerging Consensus Against the Imposition of the Death Penalty Against the Severely Mentally Ill
On November 24, 2014, attorneys for Mr. Panetti filed a challenge to the use of the death penalty against persons with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, both of which were diagnosed in Mr. Panetti decades ago.
The habeas petition, which was filed in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQRWZpbWdQZkV3d0xRTFI2RWE3M21WZXcyYlQ0/view?usp=sharing
Mr. Panetti’s Subsequent Motion for a Stay of Execution can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxR5nee8pBYQeVdkODE0VWpsN3RERW80LXUtVUFmTHhBakg4/view?usp=sharing
Citing new research from a forthcoming empirical study, today’s filing argues that actual sentencing practices reveal an emerging consensus against use of the death penalty in cases where the defendant has severe mental illness. The new research, which examines the capital sentencing practices of 7 states, finds that only “5 out of 68, or 7.35% of defendants found [guilty but mentally ill] have been sentenced to death.” (p. 45)
Furthermore, “the most recent instance in which a defendant found [guilty but mentally ill] was sentenced to death took place at least 20 years ago,” and none of those defendants has been executed. (pp. 45-46)
The new research “provides a critical element that has been missing from previous arguments that people with severe mental illness deserve the same constitutional protection when facing the death penalty that Atkins provides to people with intellectual disability. No court previously presented with this argument has had before it any evidence of actual relevant sentencing practices.” (pp. 43)
“The infrequency with which the death penalty is imposed on the class of death-eligible mentally ill defendants…demonstrates that a consensus has emerged against the imposition of the death penalty on mentally ill defendants.” (p. 47)
Other objective factors that demonstrate the national consensus against the death penalty for people with severe mental illness include the opinion of mental health professionals, and “[n]early every major mental health association in the United States has published policy statements recommending an outright…ban on the death penalty for offenders with severe mental illness....” (pp. 48-49)
The National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), NAMI’s Texas affiliate, the American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America, Disability Rights Texas, dozens of other mental health experts and the American Bar Association, which in 2006 approved a resolution urging preclusion of the death penalty for those who were mentally ill at the time of their crimes, are actively urging officials in Texas to stop Mr. Panetti’s execution.
The filing notes that “the imposition of the death penalty on people with severe mental illness, like people with intellectual disability [who are protected from the death penalty], does not serve the goals of deterrence and retribution because of their reduced moral culpability.” (p. 62). Furthermore, “defendants with severe mental illness have less ability to meaningfully assist counsel, have demeanors which can alienate a jury, and can less effectively testify on their own behalf.” (p. 64)
This was certainly the case with Mr. Panetti who “displayed ‘bizarre, ‘trance-like’ and ‘scary’ behavior throughout his trial. He asked nonsensical questions about Native Americans…and flipped a coin to decide whether to strike a potential juror.” (pp. 64-65)
“During the punishment phase, Mr. Panetti called only one witness, his standby counsel, before delivering an unintelligible punishment phase closing argument:
You know, just to touch on the spat and wasn’t cuffed, but I was bronc and Sheriff Kaiser and I had a talk, well, of the fact that I’m no longer American citizen, and because of my buckaroo case. I believe city people love horses, too, and I don’t consider myself anything above or below anyone, but I do consider myself me, and when I made my last confession at Veterans Hospital to Father De la Garza, I wasn’t Catholic. (p. 30)
Widespread Support for Clemency
On November 12, 2014, Mr. Panetti's attorneys filed a clemency petition with Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles along with letters supporting clemency from the leading Texas and national mental health organizations and professionals such as the American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America and Disability Rights Texas; criminal justice and legal professionals including former Texas Governor Mark White, state Attorneys General and former judges and prosecutors; 55 Evangelical leadersfrom Texas and nationally and 7 retired and active Bishops from the United Methodist Church and other faith leaders; Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and the American Bar Association, among others.
On November 18, 2014, worldwide support for Scott Panetti reached a groundswell with new calls for clemency from prominent individuals and organizations from across Texas and the world, including the nation’s largest grassroots advocacy organization on mental illness,National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI); NAMI’s Texas affiliate; ten legislators from Texas; former U.S. Representative Ron Paul; several more Evangelical Christians; and the European Union, which represents twenty-eight nations.
The clemency petition can be accessed through Texas Defender Service’s web page on the case: http://texasdefender.org/scott-panetti/
To access the letters supporting clemency, additional legal documents and other case resources, including a video, please go to: texasdefender.org/scott-panetti.
Additionally, a petition started by Mr. Panetti’s sister, Vicki Panetti, has been signed by over 88,000 concerned individuals.https://www.change.org/p/gov-rick-perry-spare-my-brother-s-life-a-severely-mentally-ill-man-on-death-row
To speak with Mr. Panetti’s attorneys, Kathryn Kase of Texas Defender Service and Greg Wiercioch of Texas Defender Service and University of Wisconsin Law School, or if you would like to speak with mental health and other experts, please contact Laura Burstein at Laura.B...@Squirepb.com..
Thank you.
Best wishes,
Laura Burstein
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