Scott Panetti Case Roundup: Amicus (Slate Podcast), San Antonio Express-News, and more
Stefanie Faucher
Amicus (Slate Podcast) - Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
San Antonio Express News (column)- Texas plans to kill insane man
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Lawyers try again to block Panetti execution
ACLU of Texas Liberty Blog - Too Crazy to Kill?
High Plains Blogger - Panetti Deserves to be Executed? No way!
Amicus: Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
Dahlia Lithwick talks with Scott Panetti’s lawyer and a law professor about issues raised by Panetti v. Quarterman.
By Dahlia Lithwick, November 22, 2014
Listen to Episode 6 of Slate’s Amicus: https://soundcloud.com/slateradio/amicus-mental-illness-and-the-death-penalty
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case called Panetti v. Quarterman. It raised questions about whether a Texas murderer, Scott Panetti, was too mentally ill to be put to death.
The high court sent the case back to the Texas courts, with instructions to look more carefully into whether Panetti’s schizophrenia and delusions made him ineligible for the death penalty. The lower courts determined he was still fit for the death penalty. Panetti is set to be executed on Dec. 3.
On Episode 6 of Slate’s Amicus, we hear an excerpt from the oral argument from April 2007. Plus, Dahlia talks with Scott Panetti’s lawyer, Kathryn Kase, and the University of Virginia’s Brandon Garrett about the death penalty, mental illness, and the high court.
Please let us know what you think of Amicus, which will appear several times a month to start.
Email: ami...@slate.com
Podcast production by Tony Field.
Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate.
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Texas plans to kill insane man
By Brian Chasnoff, November 24, 2014
In Texas, you can be as insane as Scott Panetti, and the state — particularly Sen. Ted Cruz — would still insist on killing you.
As the state’s solicitor general, Cruz argued for Panetti’s execution before the Supreme Court, vowing to carry out the capital sentence even after the high court opined that Panetti was not sane enough to be executed.
Cruz got his way. The state is scheduled to execute Panetti next week.
How insane is Panetti?
The San Antonio Express-News has scrutinized that question since Sept. 8, 1992, when Panetti shaved his head, donned military fatigues and shot to death his parents-in-law inside their home in Fredericksburg, in front of his estranged wife and 3-year-old daughter.
In the 11 years before the crime, Panetti had been committed to psychiatric hospitals 14 times, with one stay ending two months before the killings.
One hospital diagnosed the Navy veteran as schizophrenic, reporting he was “psychotic, delusional and actively hallucinating.” Another reported he was “grandiose and speaking incoherently.” Panetti feared federal agents were watching him. He once nailed his curtains shut so neighbors wouldn’t film him. Another time, he buried his furniture so the devil couldn’t hide it.
Pause for a legal interlude.
In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled it’s cruel and unusual to execute the insane. That’s a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. A wrinkle to that ruling: If you’re sane enough to understand why you’re being punished, you’re sane enough to be executed.
After Panetti fatally shot Jose and Amanda Alvarado, both at close range in the heart with a high-powered rifle, he kidnapped his wife, Sonja, and their toddler, hauling them to his barricaded hunter’s cabin. He held officers at bay for nine hours before surrendering.
In 1994, a psychiatrist told a jury about Panetti’s history, and that Panetti believed he was being directed by four or five different personalities. Nonetheless, the jury ruled Panetti was competent to face trial for capital murder, and a judge allowed Panetti to defend himself.
And so began his circus-for-a-trial.
In purple cowboy attire, Panetti sought to subpoena John F. Kennedy and Jesus. A judge instructed him to explain why the court clerk should issue hundreds of subpoenas, and Panetti said he wanted to show “how the cow ate the cabbage.”
His rambling arguments to a frightened jury included stories of beer spiked with LSD, rodeo performing, working as a bounty hunter and Elvis Presley’s drug problem. He blamed an alternate personality named “Sarge Ironhorse” for the slayings. He told childhood stories about nearly drowning and soiling his trousers.
Panetti was found guilty and sentenced to death.
In 2004, a federal judge halted his execution so the courts could re-examine his competency. At the time, a forensic psychologist described Panetti as “actively psychotic” and suffering from schizophrenia. A University of Texas at Austin law professor said, “In 15 years of representing death row inmates, I do not believe I have met anyone who is as obviously and as deeply mentally disturbed as Mr. Panetti clearly is.”
In 2007, the Supreme Court decided to consider the case. By then, Panetti had stopped taking his medication. His delusions had grown worse. Demons, he believed, were orchestrating his death sentence.
As solicitor general, Cruz offered a curious argument: Requiring inmates to rationally understand their punishments is too lenient. Many death row inmates are mentally ill, anyway. And Panetti knew he was being executed for killing two people.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who supplied the decisive vote, disagreed.
He wrote that “gross delusions stemming from severe mental disorder” can so distort an inmate’s understanding of his execution “that the punishment can serve no proper purpose.” Lower courts misapplied the law when they decided Panetti was sane enough to be executed.
Unfortunately, the ruling ordered a lower court to re-examine the case, and last year a federal appeals court accepted the state’s argument that Panetti is exaggerating his illness.
In spite of the Constitution, Texas is a week away from killing an insane man.
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http://www.jsonline.com/news/regional-news-briefs-b99396141z1-283789101.html
Lawyers try again to block Panetti execution
Lawyers for Hayward native Scott Panetti filed another appeal on Monday in hopes of blocking his execution, which is scheduled for Dec. 3 in Texas.
The lawyers cite new research from a Northwestern University Law School professor that found only five of 68 defendants who are both eligible for the death penalty and were found to be guilty but mentally ill have been sentenced to death. The last such person was sentenced 20 years ago, and none has been executed.
The study has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology but has not yet been published.
Panetti was first treated for paranoid schizophrenia in 1978 and was hospitalized 14 more times before he shot and killed his wife's parents in 1992 in Fredericksburg, Texas. Panetti was allowed to represent himself at trial, despite dressing and behaving bizarrely. He often rambled during the trial and refused to enter medical information that might have led jurors to spare him the death penalty, his lawyers argue.
Panetti's case came before the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that the federal court in Texas did not properly examine whether Panetti had a rational understanding of why he is being executed. Panetti's lawyers say he thinks he's being put to death for preaching the Bible. State prosecutors maintain he is faking.
Panetti has not been given a mental competency exam since 2008.
More than 80,000 people — including several mental health advocates, religious leaders, politicians, legal experts and human rights activists — have petitioned Gov. Rick Perry to set aside the death sentence.
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http://www.aclutx.org/blog/?p=3381
Too Crazy to Kill?
By Tanya Greene, November 24, 2014
When I was a kid, my cousin, Stevie, came to live with us in Memphis. My brothers and I were intrigued by our almost-adult cousin who never really came out of the back bedroom. We’d sneak along the hall and listen to him arguing with himself—long, angry, complicated tirades that made no sense. We first-hand saw his fear of electrical outlets, avoidance of the sun, refusal to bathe, and real consternation about his food and what might be in it. My parents tried what they could to help him; my aunt and uncle had not been successful. I heard “schizophrenia” float around the house but didn’t understand that his brain didn’t work like mine.
Then suddenly he was gone.
And even more suddenly we heard whispers he had killed someone who disturbed his sleep one night in a park in Nashville. And that the dead man was a policeman.
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Our society has thousands of untreated mentally ill people; our criminal justice system is overloaded with even more. The legal system is not equipped to handle the burden. The capital system is not designed with a treatment goal, which is what all mentally ill people—including those who commit crimes—need so desperately.
Scott Panetti is yet another instance of a severely mentally ill man hopelessly embroiled in the criminal justice system. He has suffered from schizophrenia for decades; his terrible capital crimes illustrate it, his behavior during trial and in prison confirm it. Even a young child knows how crazy it is to dress as a cowboy and flip a coin to pick jurors while representing yourself in trial for your life.
Mental illness is not an excuse to behave badly—it can be an explanation for the behavior. Often we cannot see the depth and breadth of mental health issues like we can see physical impairments. But just like we wouldn’t ask a woman with a broken leg to run a footrace, we cannot expect normal brain behavior from someone with a damaged or otherwise dys-functioning brain.
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I’m not sure how but Stevie’s parents, my father, and another aunt were able to testify at a hearing about his illness and his inability to understand and function in the “real” world, and the judge concluded he was too crazy to kill. Stevie avoided a death sentence in court. Instead, he was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane, where he was actually treated. He was an exception; he was lucky in that instance.
Years later, there was talk that he was cured and that he was coming home to us again. But the week my father was to go pick him up, we got word he had been found hanging from a sheet in his cell, an apparent suicide. Other prisoners my father had met over the years there confirmed the guards had something to do with it—that there was no way a Black man would “get away with” killing a white cop, no matter how crazy he was.
So Stevie was executed in the end.
Today, more than 20 years later, the state of Texas is poised to execute another mentally ill human being. If the state of Texas executes Scott Panetti next week, as a society we have abdicated our responsibility to one more of the most helpless among us.
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My father used to tell a story of when he and my uncle Louis took Stevie and his brother Danny fishing in upstate New York, long before I was born. One time they were stopped by a park ranger who bent down to ask Stevie, “Now where are you all from, little boy?”
And Stevie answered, “Home,” and wondered why they all laughed.
Take action:
Tell Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that they should stop the execution of mentally ill Scott Panetti.
Sign the Change.org petition created by Scott’s sister to join the 80,000+ people who say Texas should not execute a schizophrenic man.
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http://highplainsblogger.com/2014/11/24/panetti-deserves-to-be-executed-no-way/
PANETTI DESERVES TO BE EXECUTED? NO WAY!
By John Kanelis, November 24, 2014
Some time back, I declared my opposition to capital punishment.
Scott Louis Panetti offers a textbook example of why the punishment as applied in Texas is barbaric.
Panetti committed an awful crime in the early 1990s. He shot his in-laws to death. His guilt is beyond doubt.
But it gets a whole lot trickier from there.
He represented himself during his 1995 trial and during testimony he sought to call — get ready for this — John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ as witnesses.
Panetti, you see, is a lunatic. He suffers from acute schizophrenia. He’s nuts. Panetti doesn’t deserve to die for this crime because he quite likely didn’t know what on God’s Earth he was doing when he killed his mother- and father-in-law.
He’s set to die in Dec. 3 in the death chamber in Livingston, Texas.
Some officials, including former Gov. Mark White, have written a letter asking for clemency. “We are deeply troubled that a capital sentence was the result of a trial where a man with schizophrenia represented himself, dressed in a costume,” the letter stated. “We come together from across the partisan and ideological divide and are united in our belief that, irrespective of whether we support or oppose the death penalty, this is not an appropriate case for execution.”
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, isn’t known for exhibiting compassion regarding capital punishment cases. My guess is that the court will dismiss the request, perhaps suggesting that Panetti was faking his lunacy.
Panetti’s craziness appears real to me. He shouldn’t die for the crime he committed.
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For Immediate Release: November 24, 2014
Contact: Laura Burstein, Laura.B...@Squirepb.com
For More Information: www.texasdefender.org/scott-panetti
New Filing: National Consensus has Emerged against Imposition of the
Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness
Attorneys for Scott Panetti, a Schizophrenic Man Scheduled for Execution on December 3rd, File Eighth Amendment Challenge in Texas’ Highest Court
(Austin, Texas, November 24, 2014) Today, attorneys for Scott Panetti, a man who has suffered from schizophrenia for over thirty years, 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
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, “Sarge,” Mr. Panetti was found guilty and sentenced to death.
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.
Today’s 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)
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 and imitated the sound of shots being fired. As the filing explains, an attorney present at the trial recounts, “[One juror] told me that the goofy things that Scott said and did scared the jury.” (pp. 31-32)
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.
The first time Mr. Panetti showed signs of being afflicted with a psychotic disorder was in 1978, over 14 years before he shaved his head and killed his in-laws, Amanda and Joseph Alvarado. During his multiple hospitalizations, doctors diagnosed him with chronic schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
In 1986, Mr. Panetti first succumbed to the delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan. In an affidavit supporting Mr. Panetti’s involuntarily commitment, his first wife described how 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.
Mr. Panetti has a fixed delusion that his execution is being orchestrated by Satan, working through the State of Texas, to put an end to his preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has not had a competency hearing in nearly seven years.
Detailed information about Mr. Panetti’s history of severe mental illness can be found in 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: http://texasdefender.org/wp-content/uploads/Panetti-Mental-Illness-Timeline.htm
In addition to the leading mental health organizations, Mr. Panetti has received worldwide support for clemency, including from over 55 prominent Evangelical Christians and 7 retired and active Bishops from the United Methodist Church and other faith leaders; former U.S. Representative Ron Paul; former Texas Governor Mark White, 10 Texas state legislators; nearly 30 former prosecutors and U.S. Attorneys General; Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, the American Bar Association, and the European Union, which represents twenty-eight nations.
Additionally, a petition started by Mr. Panetti’s sister, Vicki Panetti, has been signed by over 80,000 concerned individuals.https://www.change.org/p/gov-rick-perry-spare-my-brother-s-life-a-severely-mentally-ill-man-on-death-row
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.
To access legal filings, the clemency petition, the letters supporting clemency, additional documents and case resources, including a video, please go to: http://texasdefender.org/scott-panetti.
To speak with Mr. Panetti’s attorneys, Kathryn Kase of Texas Defender Service and Gregory Wiercioch of Texas Defender Service and the University of Wisconsin Law School, or if you would like to speak with mental health experts or signatories to the clemency letters, please contact Laura Burstein at Laura.B...@Squirepb.com.
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