Scott Panetti Case Roundup: Houston Chronicle, Virginian Pilot, and more
Stefanie Faucher
Houston Chronicle - Editorial: End Executions
The Virginian Pilot - Editorial: In Texas, a last chance for justice
The Capitol Times (Madison, WI) - Editorial: Texas should not kill Wisconsin native Scott Panetti
ACSblog (op-ed) - Nancy Leong: Executing the Mentally Ill
Dallas Morning News (op-ed) - Tom Price: Abolish the Death Penalty
UTA The Shorthorn (column) - Frederick Tran: Mentally disabled people shouldn't face death penalty
Associated Press - U.S. Supreme Court asked to halt execution of 'delusional' Texas inmate
Associated Press - Attorneys: Condemned Killer in Texas Is Delusional
Reuters (Austin) - Last-ditch appeals made for mentally ill Texas death row inmate
Reuters (Geneva) - U.N. experts urge Texas to halt execution of mentally ill inmate
Los Angeles Times - Texas stirs controversy with plans to execute schizophrenic man
USA Today - On life and death, justices show more divisions
USA Today - Killer's competency in spotlight on eve of execution
The Guardian - Sane enough for Texas: the Lone Star State's history of executing mentally ill inmates
National Public Radio - Texas Death Row Case Draws Attention To Mentally Ill Convicts
NPR - The Takeaway - Mentally Ill Inmate Set to be Put to Death in Texas
MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show - 3 Segments: Perry pressured ahead of Texas execution of mentally ill man; Execution looms for mentally ill man as lawyers scramble; Texas zeal for execution awkward for America
MSNBC All in with Chris Hayes - Texas set to execute inmate with decades-long history of mental illness
MSNBC.com (Maddow Blog) - Texas’ Perry under pressure in Scott Panetti case
MSNBC.com - Conservatives request Rick Perry halt execution of ‘mentally ill’ inmate
Huffington Post - Rick Perry Silent Under Pressure To Delay Execution Of Severely Mentally Ill Man
Huffington Post Live - Will Insanity Save This Texas Death Row Inmate?
Buzzfeed - Scott Panetti’s Lawyers Make Last-Ditch Pleas To Stop Texas Execution
Democracy Now - Will Texas Execute a Schizophrenic Man Who Tried to Subpoena Jesus, JFK & the Pope at His Own Trial?
BBC News - 'Mentally ill' Texas inmate appeals against execution
Salon - “A mockery”: Conservative group condemns planned execution of mentally ill Texas man Scott Panetti is set to be put to death tomorrow
ThinkProgress - Texas Is About To Execute A Mentally Ill Man Who Thinks He’s Being Killed Over A War With ‘Demons’
Reason - Texas to Execute Severely Mentally Ill Man Tonight Despite Public Outcry
Al Jazeera America - UN says Texas execution of mentally ill man would be 'cruel and unworthy'
Austin American-Statesman - Why a planned Texas execution is firing broad opposition
Austin American-Statesman - From our archives: The slayings that sent Scott Panetti to death row
Texas Tribune - Schizophrenic Inmate Set for Execution Wednesday
Texas Tribune - The Brief: Broad Opposition Gathers Against Panetti Execution
Houston Chronicle - Killer's planned execution sparks debate
KERA-FM (NPR Dallas) - Texas Set To Execute Schizophrenic Inmate Wednesday Night
The Jurist - UN rights experts urge Texas not to execute mentally ill man
Policy Mic - Texas Is About to Perform Its Most Controversial Execution Yet
United Press International - Texas prepares to execute mentally ill killer Scott Panetti
International Business Times - Scott Panetti Death Penalty Update: Texas Prepares To Execute Mentally Ill Man
Bustle - UN Calls Texas’ Scheduled Execution of Scott Panetti, a Mentally Ill Inmate, Unworthy of Civilized Societies
The Root - The UN Pleads With Texas Officials to Delay the Execution of a Mentally Ill Man
Agencia EFE - U.N. criticizes scheduled death penalty for schizophrenic inmate in U.S.
Nonprofit Quarterly - Texas Set to Execute Mentally Ill Inmate Scott Panetti Tonight
The Telegraph UK - US Supreme Court urged to spare schizophrenic 'Purple cowboy' killer
Eagle Radio (UK) - UN Asks Texas To Halt Inmate's Execution
The Irish Independent - Outrage over planned execution of mentally ill killer
UN News Centre - UN rights experts call on US to commute death sentence of mentally ill prisoner
Deutsche Welle - Mentally ill Scott Panetti scheduled to be put to death in Texas
Catholic News Agency (CNA/EWTN NEWS) - Texas Catholics to Gov. Perry: Don’t Execute Mentally Ill Inmate (13)
Courthouse News Service - Schizophrenic Man Hours From Execution in Texas
Houston Press Blog - Mentally Ill Death Row Inmate Scott Panetti Isn't Too Mentally Ill To Be Executed Wednesday
Conservative HQ.com - Conservative Opposition to Panetti Death Penalty Intensifies
Russia Times - Conservatives launching last-minute campaign to stop Texas from executing mentally-ill prisoner
FireDogLake - Over Easy: TX to Execute ‘Floridly Psychotic’ Scott Panetti Today at 6 PM
Common Dreams - Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Halt Execution of Mentally Ill Man
Tech Times - Will Texas Execute Killer Who is Schizophrenic, Delusional?
Sputnik News - Execution of Mentally Ill Killer Scott Panetti Scheduled in Texas
Sky News - UN Asks Texas To Halt Inmate's Execution
WWMT News Channel 3 - Attorneys want intervention in Texas execution
http://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/End-executions-5930794.php
End executions
A Texas criminal court judge makes the case for ending the state's death penalty.
Houston Chronicle | December 2, 2014
If Texas ever ends the death penalty, legal scholars will find the beginning of the end in the penultimate paragraph of Judge Tom Price's six-page dissent to a Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals refusal to stay Scott Panetti's execution:
"I am among a very few number of people who have had a front row seat to this process for the past four decades. I now repeat what I stated originally in my dissenting opinion in Ex parte [Anthony] Graves: 'We are the guardians of the process.' Based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I now conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished because the execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty; the life without parole option adequately protects society at large in the same way as the death penalty punishment option; and the risk of executing an innocent person for a capital murder is unreasonably high, particularly in light of procedural-default laws and the prevalence of ineffective trial and initial habeas counsel."
Price's opinion doesn't reach for poetry, like creative jurists who write for the history books. It doesn't spend page upon page laying out a philosophical blueprint for like-minded legal scholars, like so many U.S. Supreme Court opinions. Price's dissent is the simple, undeniable conclusion of his 40-year career as a judge in Texas' criminal courts: Our death penalty is a failure.
Price's opinion is short, effective and powerful. And it will not stop Texas from executing the mentally ill Scott Panetti today at 6 p.m.
Panetti, who was convicted of murdering his in-laws in 1992, is a diagnosed schizophrenic. His lifetime of mental illness has been on full display throughout the trial and appeals process. From his history of involuntary commitment in a mental hospital, his bizarre and even terrifying antics at trial and his continuing belief that his upcoming execution is part of a Satanic conspiracy, it should be clear that Panetti's death will serve as neither deterrence nor retribution. Even Panetti's ex-wife, whose parents he killed, has called for clemency. The state government stands alone in its cry for blood.
Texans have a healthy skepticism of government, but for whatever reason we seem to unquestioningly - and sometimes even gleefully - trust the state with the power to kill its own citizens. As proven by the exoneration of men such as Anthony Graves, who sat on death row only to be proved innocent, it is a power dispensed too haphazardly to continue. This fact has become apparent to Judge Price through 40 years of experience, and it is a fact that Texas voters must impress upon our elected legislators.
Multiple pleas to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas' highest criminal court, have found a surprisingly divided panel. In a striking dissent, Judge Elsa Alcala accused the court of elevating "form over substance" and "violating the constitutionally required procedural protections" in denying on jurisdictional grounds a motion for stay of execution.
As Price laid out in his dissent on a separate appeal, Texas' inconsistent application of constitutional protections for a mentally ill man creates an "artificial line between life and death."
Even conservative political leaders such as former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have called the upcoming execution "immoral" and said that our nation's highest punishment should "not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought."
Panetti is a man who sees a world of madness that doesn't exist. Judge Price has spent decades observing the world of madness that is our death penalty. It is time to put both Panetti and the death penalty where they belong, locked away from society forever, where they can never hurt again.
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http://hamptonroads.com/2014/12/texas-last-chance-justice
In Texas, a last chance for justice
The Virginian-Pilot, December 3, 2014
A travesty of a death penalty case has accomplished something rare: It has brought together ultra conservatives, religious and political leaders and the far left to correct an injustice before it's too late.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to die tonight in Texas for killing his mother-in-law and father-in-law in 1992. In the 14 years before those murders, Panetti was repeatedly diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalized. Doctors said he was paranoid, suffered from hallucinations and had thoughts about killing his family. In 1986, the Social Security Administration, noting that he was disabled by mental illness, declared him incompetent to manage his affairs.
Still, the state of Texas determined he was competent to represent himself at trial. With his life on the line in 1995, Panetti showed up in a cowboy outfit, talked about himself in the third person and frightened the jurors. The state of Texas determined he was competent to be executed in 2004 and set his execution date. The U.S. Supreme Court intervened hours before Panetti was scheduled to die.
Establishing whether a defendant is competent at every stage in the justice system is critical. If he can't understand the nature of what is happening and why, he can't defend himself or help his lawyers defend him. If he has no rational understanding of why he's being put to death, it's pointless - immoral - to kill him.
On Oct. 16, the state secretly set Panetti's second execution date. Neither prosecutors, the attorney general nor the judge notified his lawyers that they had done so. His lawyers learned from a newspaper story Oct. 30 that their client was scheduled for lethal injection a month later.
Panetti hasn't been evaluated for competency in seven years. He's received no treatment for his mental illness in that time. He believes his execution is being orchestrated by Satan, working through the state of Texas, to put an end to his preaching the gospel to the condemned. The state contends he's competent.
Hundreds of people are now calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to intervene, either to postpone the execution so Panetti can be evaluated for competency or to spare his life. Among them: Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Earley, two former Virginia attorneys general; Richard Viguerie, a conservative national political strategist; Ron Paul, former congressman; Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice; current and retired United Methodist Church bishops; and heads of the American Bar Association, the National Alliance on Mental Health and the European Union.
The odds are not in Panetti's favor. Perry did not intervene in three other cases involving profoundly mentally ill men awaiting execution in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
But another Republican governor, faced with a similar decision in 1999, did the right thing, not the easy thing. Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore commuted the death sentence of Calvin Eugene Swann to life in prison because of Swann's severe mental illness. Like Panetti, Swann had been involuntarily committed to mental hospitals multiple times. Like Panetti, Swann was receiving Social Security payments based on his illness when he killed a Danville man in 1992.
Gilmore, who had declined to intervene in 21 previous executions, dispassionately weighed the facts and spared Swann's life.
Panetti's life is in the hands of federal judges. If they don't intervene, the life-or-death decision will be Perry's to make.
Former Texas Gov. Mark White has been there. "I know very well that in so many instances, there are incredibly close and difficult calls that have to be made to either allow or prohibit the death penalty from being carried out. But Scott Panetti's plea for clemency is no such case. He is a severely mentally ill man. His trial was a sham. And executing Panetti would say far more about us than it would about the man we are attempting to kill."
Conservatives and liberals, evangelicals, Catholics and advocates for social justice have pleaded with Texas not to cross this moral line. Two people are dead. As the victims' daughter has noted, one more death - a tortured soul with multiple personalities who has spent nearly four decades hallucinating - won't make anything right.
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Texas should not kill Wisconsin native Scott Panetti
December 2, 2014
Wisconsin abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 1853, at the demand of the citizens who more than a century and a half ago recognized that the state-sponsored execution of prisoners was as barbaric as it was pointless.
Unfortunately, other states have not always been so enlightened.
There has been tremendous progress in recent years in the struggle to ban capital punishment. Recognizing that state-sponsored slayings are not just inhumane but ineffective when it comes to reducing crime, the states of Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York have over the past decade acted to bar executions.
In many cases, those states acted because of concerns that innocents had been or could be killed as part of a fundamentally flawed process that has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with the politics of vengeance.
We believe that, ultimately, the death penalty will be outlawed in the United States, as it has been in the vast majority of nations around the world. Until that happens, however, there will continue to be debates about whether particular executions are justified.
Such a debate is now playing out in Texas. At issue is whether Gov. Rick Perry will, on Wednesday, allow the execution of Scott Panetti, a Hayward, Wis., native who was raised in Poynette. Panetti, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, was repeatedly hospitalized before he was charged with murdering his in-laws in 1992 and convicted of the crime in 1995.
Perry should grant clemency to Panetti, commuting his sentence to life imprisonment. To do otherwise would be an extreme injustice — as the record makes all too clear.
At the time of his prosecution, Panetti was so mentally ill that he attempted to call John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ as witnesses. A judge allowed Panetti to fire his attorneys, call himself to the stand and then conduct an interrogation as attorney and witness — using different voices. Panetti conducted his defense wearing a cowboy costume.
The trial was a travesty, and executing him would be wrong not only morally but legally. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of individuals who lack a factual or rational understanding of why they are being put to death. The justices identified the killing of mentally impaired individuals as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Legal and medical experts have long recognized that Panetti was severely mentally ill "before, during and after the crime for which he has been sentenced to death."
"I know very well that in so many instances, there are incredibly close and difficult calls that have to be made to either allow or prohibit the death penalty from being carried out. But Scott Panetti's plea for clemency is no such case,” says former Texas Gov. Mark White, a former state attorney general who as his state’s chief executive oversaw 19 executions. Panetti, White argues, “is a severely mentally ill man. His trial was a sham. And executing Panetti would say far more about us than it would about the man we are attempting to kill.”
White has strongly urged Perry to commute Panetti's death sentence to life imprisonment without parole.
So, too, have the American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 33 former prosecutors and U.S. attorneys general and dozens of evangelical leaders.
This week, more than 20 leading conservatives joined the call for Perry to commute Panetti's sentence to life in prison.
“Each of us has been active at the national level of the conservative movement for many years, and no one could accuse us of being soft on crime. Among conservatives there is much debate about the effectiveness and the morality of the death penalty. Some crimes are so terrible, and committed with such clear malice, that some believe that execution seems the only appropriate and proportional response. But Scott Panetti’s is no such case,” wrote former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and veteran conservative activist Brent Bozell, among others. “The authority to take a man’s life is the most draconian penalty that we allow our government to exercise. As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought. It would be immoral for the government to take this man’s life. Should the board recommend it, we respectfully urge you to reduce Mr. Panetti’s death sentence to life in prison.”
The conservatives are right.
Wisconsin does not execute inmates. Texas does.
That is a profound difference between our states.
But there can and should be agreement, across state lines and the lines that separate individuals ideologically and politically, that Scott Panetti should not be executed.
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctv...@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
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https://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/executing-the-mentally-ill
Executing the Mentally Ill
By Nancy Leong, December 2, 2014
Scott Panetti is scheduled for execution in Texas tomorrow, Wednesday, December 3.
Mr. Panetti has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illness for over thirty years. He first exhibited signs of a psychotic disorder as a teenager. Between 1978 and 1992, he was hospitalized for mental illness fifteen times. He developed a delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan. He tried to exorcize his home by burying furniture in the backyard because, he claimed, the devil was in it.
In 1992, Mr. Panetti went off his medication, shaved his head, and dressed in camouflage fatigues. He went to his in-laws house and murdered his mother and father-in-law in front of his wife and daughter. After turning himself in, Mr. Panetti blamed the crime on “Sarge,” one of his recurring hallucinations. He explained that God had ensured that his victims had not suffered.
A trial judge allowed Mr. Panetti to represent himself at the subsequent trial and sentencing, even disregarding the concerns of the prosecutor. Predictably, the proceedings were, in the words of Mr. Panetti’s stand-by attorney, “truly a judicial farce.” Mr. Panetti wore a cowboy costume and a purple bandana to court. He attempted to subpoena John F. Kennedy, the Pope, Jesus Christ, and his own alter ego, “Sarge,” among 200 others. His statements were rambling and incoherent. He fell asleep during trial. While describing the shooting, he assumed the personality of “Sarge” and narrated the events in the third person. He pointed an imaginary rifle at jurors, visibly frightening them. And he rejected a plea bargain that could have saved his life.
Unsurprisingly, a jury convicted Mr. Panetti and sentenced him to death. Several jurors explained that they had done so because they were so afraid of Mr. Panetti that they wanted to ensure he never got out of prison, and Texas, at the time, did not offer the possibility of life without parole.
As with many individuals on death row, a long series of appeals followed, focusing on Mr. Panetti’s mental illness. The Supreme Court, in a 1968 case called Ford v. Wainwright, prohibited the execution of people who are so out of touch with reality that they do not know right from wrong and cannot understand their punishment or the purpose of it. Mr. Panetti’s attorneys argued that this holding applies to him. His severe mental illness causes him to believe that Satan, working through the state of Texas, is seeking to execute him for preaching the Gospel—and, therefore, he cannot possess a rational understanding of the link between his crime and his punishment.
Mr. Panetti’s case first reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007. In an opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, a 5-4 majority of the Court held in Panetti v. Quarterman that further inquiry into Mr. Panetti’s mental condition was required. The Court instructed the lower courts to ensure not only that Panetti was aware that he would be executed, but also that he had a “rational understanding” of the reason for his execution. The Court held that “[g]ross delusions stemming from a severe mental disorder may put an awareness of a link between a crime and its punishment so far removed from reality that the punishment can serve no proper purpose.”
Administered under such conditions, an execution would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Court instructed the district court to reconsider Mr. Panetti’s competence on remand.
The subsequent proceedings were complex. For present purposes, suffice it to say that Mr. Panetti’s death sentence remains in place. And despite the Supreme Court’s instruction that “[t]he conclusions of physicians, psychiatrists, and other experts in the field” should be considered before carrying out a death sentence, Mr. Panetti has not received a competency evaluation in nearly seven years.
No one could dispute that Mr. Panetti’s actions were atrocious beyond words. The death of two innocent people is an unspeakable tragedy. But the execution of a man grievously afflicted by mental illness for three decades would also be an atrocity—one that would in no way compensate for the murder of his in-laws. His execution serves no retributive purpose and provides no deterrent example to others.
To most people, Mr. Panetti’s lengthy history of mental illness and his bizarre behavior strongly suggest that Ford should prevent his execution. Indeed, a recent poll found that 58% of Americans oppose executing mentally ill people, with only 28% in favor. The broad and diverse coalition opposing Mr. Panetti’s death sentence reflects this understanding. At last count, this coalition included the American Psychiatric Association, twenty-one conservative leaders from around the country, former Texas Governor Mark White, more than fifty Evangelical leaders from around Texas and the United States, the American Bar Association, ten legislators from Texas; former U.S. Representative Ron Paul, and the European Union. His ex-wife—the daughter of his victims—likewise supports clemency. As of the time of writing, more than 94,000 people had signed a Change.org petition urging clemency.
Yet thus far, our criminal justice system has failed to acknowledge this growing consensus. Last week the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused, 6-3, to stay Mr. Panetti’s execution. In dissent, Judge Tom Price wrote, “It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person such as [Mr. Panetti] would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty.” On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted, 7-0, to deny a request to commute Mr. Panetti’s sentence to life in prison.
Scott Panetti still has two chances for reprieve. On Monday, his attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a stay of execution. And following the denial by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles yesterday, Mr. Panetti’s attorneys asked Texas Governor Rick Perry for a thirty-day reprieve to evaluate Mr. Panetti’s mental condition.
As Justice Marshall explained in Ford, “the execution of an insane person simply offends humanity.” As the hours dwindle until Mr. Panetti’s scheduled execution, one can only hope that either Governor Perry or the U.S. Supreme Court will see things the same way.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20141202-tom-price-abolish-the-death-penalty.ece
Tom Price: Abolish the death penalty
By Tom Price, December 3, 2014
Having spent the last 40 years as a judge for the state of Texas, of which the last 18 years have been as a judge on this court, I have given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the court’s order denying the motion for stay of execution and dismissing the subsequent application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Scott Louis Panetti.
I would grant applicant’s motion for a stay of execution and would hold that his severe mental illness renders him categorically ineligible for the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.
I have many reasons for reaching this conclusion, only a few of which I will discuss at this juncture, and will begin with the problems illustrated by this case. The Supreme Court has determined that the execution of a mentally retarded person or of an insane person would violate the Eighth Amendment. The court’s general rationale is that the execution of such individuals would not measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty.
It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty. And yet, unless a court grants his application, the applicant, who few dispute is severely mentally ill, will be executed, whereas a similarly situated mentally challenged person, such as one who is mentally retarded or one who is insane, will have his sentence commuted to life in prison. This artificial line divides life and death.
I can imagine no rational reason for carving a line between the prohibition on the execution of a mentally retarded person or an insane person while permitting the execution of a severely mentally ill person.
But carving out another group that is ineligible for the death penalty is a Band-Aid solution for the real problem. Evolving societal values indicate that the death penalty should be abolished in its entirety.
Since Texas enacted life without parole as a punishment for capital murder, Texas district attorneys have significantly decreased their requests for the death penalty, and juries today often prefer that punishment to the death penalty.
Because the public at large is protected from a capital murder defendant regardless of whether he is executed or incarcerated for his lifetime, the life without parole option often satisfies societal desire for protection from a capital murderer.
Perhaps more importantly, society is now less convinced of the absolute accuracy of the criminal justice system. A 2012 study by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law schools ranks Texas third nationally in wrongful convictions over the past 24 years, behind Illinois and New York.
In my time on this court, I have voted to grant numerous applications for writs of habeas corpus that have resulted in the release of dozens of people who were wrongfully convicted, and I conclude that it is wishful thinking to believe that this state will never execute an innocent person for capital murder.
I am convinced that, because the criminal justice system is run by humans, it is naturally subject to human error. There is no rational basis to believe that this same type of human error will not infect capital murder trials. This is true now more than ever before in light of procedural rules that have hastened the resolution of applications for writs of habeas corpus and limited subsequent applications for habeas relief.
The lack of a guarantee of effective counsel in an initial application for habeas relief, combined with this court’s refusal to consider a subsequent writ that alleges the ineffectiveness of initial counsel, increases the risk that an innocent person may be executed for capital murder based on the procedural default of a possibly meritorious issue.
I am among a very few people who have had a front-row seat to this process for the past four decades. I now repeat what I stated originally [in a 2002 dissenting opinion in another case]: “We are the guardians of the process.”
Based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I now conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished because the execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty; the life without parole option adequately protects society at large in the same way as the death penalty punishment option; and the risk of executing an innocent person for a capital murder is unreasonably high, particularly in light of procedural-default laws and the prevalence of ineffective trial and initial habeas counsel.
Republican Judge Tom Price has served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals since 2000. This essay is condensed from his dissenting opinion in last week’s 6-3 denial of a stay for condemned inmate Scott Panetti. Reach the court at abel....@txcourts.gov.
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Column: Mentally disabled people shouldn't face death penalty
By Frederick Tran, December 2, 2014
Sometimes, even Jesus can’t save you. Under Gov. Rick Perry’s supreme reign, there were 279 executions of the convicted, the most recent one occurring Oct. 28. On Dec. 3, that number will rise to 280 executions, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Scott Panetti, Perry’s 280th execution, had 15 recorded medical visits to a variety of facilities, where his history of schizophrenia was noted, according to the Texas Defender Service. His last visit in 1992 was before his schizophrenia would condemn him for life, according to the service.
Panetti shaved his head, dressed in an Army uniform and killed his in-laws in front of his estranged wife and daughter. Panetti waived his right to counsel and wore a cowboy costume with a purple bandana to his trial, according to an article in the New York Times.
He called for more than 200 witnesses and subpoenas, including Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy and Pope John Paul II, according to the article.
He was convicted in 1995.
There are currently 32 states with the death penalty, Texas being one of them, according to deathpenaltyinfo.org. Texas holds the nation’s record high for executions — 518 to be exact — and beats runner-up Oklahoma by roughly 400 executions, according to the website.
Panetti was not in a stable state of mind that night — because Sergeant Iron Horse was in charge.
The voice in Panetti’s head is nicknamed Sarge, and has forced Panetti into cosmic battle against the forces against evil. His first wife cited in an affidavit that Panetti was “obsessed with the idea that the devil was in our house.”
This devil soon moved into his second wife’s parents house, which is why Sarge forced Panetti to kill them. Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, said that his current delusions “are that the prison wants to kill him to prevent him from preaching the gospel on death row or telling others about corruption at the [Texas Department of Criminal Justice].”
Clearly this is a man who doesn’t realize the full ramifications of the murders he committed.
I’m not saying that Panetti shouldn’t be punished. He — despite whatever voice was whispering to him that night — committed the murders of his own will, and a mental disorder does not mean a free pass.
However, to kill him because of his disorder is a harsh and unusual punishment. Isn’t it punishment enough to live with those voices in your head?
We all have known someone with a mental disorder. I cannot imagine punishing them with death for that.
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U.S. Supreme Court asked to halt execution of 'delusional' Texas inmate
By Michael Graczyk, December 3, 2014
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Attorneys for a Texas death row inmate argue his execution set for Wednesday evening would provide no retribution or deterrence because prisoner Scott Panetti is too delusional.
Panetti's lawyers are asking that his scheduled lethal injection be stopped and want the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the broader question of whether executing the mentally ill is unconstitutionally cruel.
Panetti, 56, was convicted and condemned in 1995, three years after he shot and killed his estranged wife's parents at their home in the Texas Hill Country. At his trial, he acted as his own attorney, dressed in a purple cowboy outfit, attempted to subpoena more than 200 witnesses, including the pope and Jesus Christ, and took on an alternate personality, "Sarge," to testify.
"Mr. Panetti's execution would offend contemporary standards of decency," attorneys Gregory Wiercioch and Kathryn Kase told the Supreme Court. Both visited with Panetti in prison in the past few weeks and said his mental condition had worsened and he should be entitled to a new round of competency tests.
Another appeal before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sought a reprieve to accommodate those tests.
State attorneys said records showed no significant change since Panetti's last formal examination seven years ago. During his trial and subsequent appeals, no court has found him incompetent or insane.
"Panetti's assertion of severe mental illness are in doubt when compared to the multiple past findings on his sanity, competency to stand trial and competency to be executed, as well as evidence submitted by the state," said Ellen Stewart-Klein, an assistant Texas attorney general. "Panetti's case is an inappropriate one to create a new rule of law."
In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled states may not execute killers whose insanity means they can't understand why they're being put to death. In 2002, the justices prohibited the execution of the mentally impaired. Five years later, ruling on an appeal from Panetti, the court said mentally ill condemned prisoners could be put to death if they have a factual and rational understanding of why they're being punished.
Panetti has insisted Satan is working through Texas prison officials to execute him to keep him from preaching the Gospel.
His lethal injection would be the 11th this year in the nation's busiest death penalty state and be an "unconscionable execution of a severely mentally ill man who would die without comprehending what his death means," Kase said.
Stewart-Klein said defence claims of his mental condition were exaggerated and previous tests had indicated some of his behaviour could be contrived.
The Hayward, Wisconsin, native was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and had been hospitalized more than a dozen times for treatment in the decade before fatally shooting Joe and Amanda Alvarado. Their daughter, who was married to Panetti, and her 3-year-old daughter had moved in with them and she obtained a court order to keep Panetti away.
Enraged, he armed himself with a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and knives, dressed in camouflage clothing and broke into the home in Fredericksburg, about 60 miles north of San Antonio. Both victims were shot a close range.
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/attorneys-condemned-killer-texas-delusional-27314419
Attorneys: Condemned Killer in Texas Is Delusional
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, December 2, 2014
A federal appeals court is considering whether a condemned killer in Texas should be spared from execution Wednesday so he can undergo new mental competency examinations to support arguments he's too delusional to understand why he's being punished.
Scott Panetti, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia some 14 years before killing his estranged wife's parents, "stands on the razor's edge of competency" and needs psychological evaluations to illustrate that his severe mental illness has worsened since he last was examined seven years ago, the prisoner's attorneys argued to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
State attorneys contended Panetti's condition "has not markedly changed" and he should not be given a reprieve from lethal injection.
No court has ruled Panetti mentally incompetent or insane.
The 56-year-old Hayward, Wisconsin, native was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and had been hospitalized more than a dozen times for treatment in the decade before fatally shooting Joe and Amanda Alvarado at their home in the Texas Hill Country in 1992.
Panetti's attorneys also have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the broader question of whether executing people who have mental illnesses violates the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
In 1986, the high court ruled states may not execute killers whose insanity means they can't understand why they're being put to death. In 2002, the justices prohibited the execution of the mentally impaired. Five years later, ruling on an appeal from Panetti, the court said mentally ill condemned prisoners could be put to death if they have a factual and rational understanding of why they're being punished.
Panetti has insisted Satan is working through Texas prison officials to execute him to keep him from preaching the Gospel.
Panetti's delusions "have become more pervasive," according to one of his attorneys, Gregory Wiercioch, who met with the inmate last week.
Wiercioch said Panetti told him devices implanted in his teeth by prison system dentists were sending command messages to his brain, that in the sixth grade he had a fight with future President Barack Obama at a Chicago museum and that his tooth told him to write a letter of apology to Obama.
Ellen Stewart-Klein, an assistant Texas attorney general, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that records failed to support claims that Panetti's mental condition had deteriorated and that some of his odd behavior could be deliberate.
"Panetti's mental health condition has long been exaggerated to his benefit and he continues this long established pattern here," Stewart-Klein said.
At trial, Panetti acted as his own attorney, testified as alternate personality "Sarge" to describe the Alvarado slayings and tried to subpoena Jesus Christ, the pope and the late President John F. Kennedy. Panetti wore a purple cowboy outfit, including a big cowboy hat, and largely ignored a standby attorney the judge appointed to assist him.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/02/us-usa-texas-execution-idUSKCN0JG1WV20141202
Last-ditch appeals made for mentally ill Texas death row inmate
BY JON HERSKOVITZ, Dec 2, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas plans to execute a convicted double murderer on Wednesday over the objections of lawyers arguing his life should be spared because he suffers from serious mental illness and putting him to death would be morally and legally wrong.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. CST (1900 ET) by lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville. If the execution goes ahead, Panetti would be the 519th person executed in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.
U.N. human rights experts on Tuesday called on Texas to halt the execution. Major Texas newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Dallas Morning News have said in editorials the execution of a seriously mentally ill inmate would be inexcusable.
Panetti, 56, was convicted of fatally shooting his wife's parents in the central Texas town of Fredericksburg in 1992. Panetti shaved his head, sawed off a shotgun and broke into the home of Joe and Amanda Alvarado, killing the two with his wife and daughter witnessing him shoot dead his mother-in-law, the Texas attorney general said.
"There is still time to stop this unconscionable execution of a severely mentally ill man who would die without comprehending what his death means," said Kathryn Kase, an attorney for Panetti.
Panetti donned a cowboy suit and represented himself at his 1995 trial, often speaking incoherently and seeking to call Jesus Christ and President John F. Kennedy as defense witnesses.
Lawyers for Panetti have launched last-ditch appeals for the man they say is delusional and has been afflicted with schizophrenia for over 30 years. He was hospitalized a dozen times for psychosis and delusions in the six years leading up to the crime, they said.
The Texas Attorney General's office has said that courts have ruled him competent to stand trial and to be executed.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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U.N. experts urge Texas to halt execution of mentally ill inmate
By Stephanie Nebehay, December 2, 2014 | UPDATED: 10:50 EST
GENEVA, Dec 2 (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators called on the state of Texas and U.S. federal authorities to halt the execution of a man with a history of mental illness, scheduled for Wednesday.
Scott Panetti is due to be executed for killing his parents-in-law in Gillespie County, Texas, in September 1992. The U.N. experts said he had "proven psychosocial disabilities" and killing him would breach international norms on the death penalty, as well as a global ban on torture and cruel and inhuman punishment.
"Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, we urgently appeal to the Government of the United States and the state of Texas to find a way to stop the scheduled execution, and we hope that serious consideration will be given to commuting the sentence," Christof Heyns, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, and U.N. torture investigator Juan Mendez said in a statement.
Panetti is reported to have been hospitalised for chronic schizophrenia, depression and delusions between 1981 and 1992. Carrying out the death penalty of someone with mental illness may amount to an "arbitrary execution", Heyns said.
"There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilised societies to execute persons with mental disabilities," said Mendez.
It is the second time in less than a week that U.N. rights experts have raised problems with the United States. On Friday, the U.N. Committee against Torture urged Washington to investigate cases of police brutality and also criticised "excruciating pain and prolonged suffering" caused to prisoners during "botched executions". (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-texas-execution-mentally-ill-20141202-story.html
Texas stirs controversy with plans to execute schizophrenic man
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, December 3, 2014
Attorneys and a politically diverse coalition of supporters are fighting to stop Texas from executing a schizophrenic man this week, arguing that to do so would be unconstitutional.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to be executed 6 p.m. local time Wednesday for murdering his wife’s parents at their central Texas home in 1992, shooting them with a deer-hunting rifle in front of his wife and their 3-year-old daughter.
He confessed at trial, where he wore a cowboy costume to defend himself -- arguing he was innocent by reason of insanity -- and subpoenaed more than 200 witnesses including the pope, John F. Kennedy and Jesus. He said that only an insane person could prove insanity.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia 36 years ago, Panetti, his lawyers say, still hears voices and suffers from the delusions that the attorneys argue prevent him from understanding why he is being executed, which would violate the 8th Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
The case has drawn national attention to the state with the most active death chamber, where it is not unusual for those facing the death penalty to claim mental illness or disability.
“What makes Scott Panetti different is this long history that is so well documented in his medical records -- a long history of a severe, debilitating mental illness,” his attorney Kathryn Kase told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
“He thinks the prison system implanted a listening device in his teeth and knows what he’s going to do before he does it. He’s all wrapped up in this delusion that the prison system wants to 'rub him out' for trying to convert these heathens and preach the gospel,” said Kase, who represents inmates as part of the nonprofit Texas Defender Service.
Prosecutors have disagreed, arguing that Panetti was competent to stand trial and be executed, that his symptoms are less severe than he pretends and that defense attorneys have had years to complete new evaluations. Court-appointed state medical experts have repeatedly questioned the validity of Panetti's symptoms.
“Panetti knows that he killed his in-laws, while his wife and child looked on, and he knows that he has been sentenced to die for that crime,” the Texas attorney general's office argued in court filings.
An assistant district attorney in the county where Panetti was tried noted that Panetti recently discussed election-day politics during a recorded prison visit with relatives.
"At the very least, it is clear that Panetti is oriented to time and place, a fact which his lawyers have disputed," prosecutor Lucy Wilke said in a filing last month to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which refused to stop Panetti’s execution.
Panetti’s attorneys appealed in state district court and to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, requesting that they stay or delay his execution so his competency to be executed could be assessed. Both appeals were denied.
Their appeal for clemency to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles also was denied, despite support from Texas legislators, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul and the European Union. Panetti’s appeal for a 30-day stay is pending before Gov. Rick Perry. Perry's office declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Greg Abbott, Texas' attorney general and governor-elect, declined comment.
Panetti's attorneys have an appeal pending before the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting funding for a mental health expert to evaluate his competency, something that hasn't been done since 2007. His lawyers have also appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a stay based on the 8th Amendment.
An assistant Texas attorney general told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that records failed to support Panetti's claim that his mental health had deteriorated. Instead, the attorney said, Panetti's bizarre behavior was deliberate.
"Panetti's mental health condition has long been exaggerated to his benefit and he continues this long-established pattern here," assistant Atty. Gen. Ellen Stewart-Klein wrote in court filings.
In 2007, the Supreme Court reviewed Panetti's case and found that inmates must be required to not only know that they are being punished, but to have a "rational understanding" of why.
Now his attorneys argue that it’s time for the high court to step in and force Texas officials to recognize that Panetti is too sick to be put to death.
“In the state’s refusal to believe just how ill Scott Panetti is, one might want to ask: Who’s more delusional, Scott Panetti or the state of Texas?” said Kase, adding, “He has not been protected by the courts -- the courts have just moved his case along.”
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/02/supreme-court-death-penalty/19787673/
On life and death, justices show more divisions
By Richard Wolf, December 2, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court — the last stop for condemned prisoners such as Scott Panetti, a Texan who is mentally ill — appears increasingly wary of the death penalty.
In May, the justices blocked the execution of a Missouri murderer because his medical condition made it likely that he would suffer from a controversial lethal injection.
Later that month, the court ruled 5-4 that Florida must apply a margin of error to IQ tests, thereby making it harder for states to execute those with borderline intellectual disabilities.
In September, a tipping point on lethal injections was nearly reached when four of the nine justices sought to halt a Missouri prisoner's execution because of the state's use of a drug that had resulted in botched executions elsewhere.
And in October, the court stopped the execution of yet another Missouri man over concerns that his lawyers were ineffective and had missed a deadline for an appeal. The justices are deciding whether to hear that case in full.
Now, on top of drug protocols, developmental disabilities and attorneys' mistakes, the court must decide in Panetti's case whether mental illness should be another reason to keep prisoners alive.
"There's frustration on the part of at least some of the justices about the death penalty, and what to do about it," says Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
At least three justices — Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — consistently vote against blocking state executions. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy usually line up with them.
The court's four liberals — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — have shown the most hesitation or opposition. Ginsburg said in September that capital punishment cases have been the "most troubling" of her 21-year career on the court.
Kennedy joined the liberals in May, writing the court's opinion in Hall v. Florida that struck down overly rigid IQ test requirements. "Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number," Kennedy wrote.
While the court has yet to hear a case on the ethics of lethal injections, it has moved toward the liberals' position in recent years on issues of mental capacity.
In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the court ruled 6-3 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violated their Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. This year's ruling in Freddie Lee Hall's case fine-tuned that decision.
In Roper v. Simmons (2005), the court ruled 5-4 that juveniles who were under age 18 when they committed their crimes are not eligible for the death penalty. It since has limited the use of life without parole for juvenile offenders as well.
The court's precedent on mental illness dates back to 1986, when it ruled in Ford v. Wainwright that prisoners must be deemed mentally competent before being executed. Determining competency was left up to the states, however.
"It's difficult to define mental illness, whereas it's easier to define mental retardation and quantify it," Dieter says. "Mental illness is one area where they could really open up a whole new exemption."
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/02/texas-execute-mentally-ill-panetti/19788803/
Killer's competency in spotlight on eve of execution
By Rick Jervis, December 2, 2014
AUSTIN -- Scott Panetti dressed as a cowboy during his murder trial and, acting as his own lawyer, called John F. Kennedy, Jesus and the pope as witnesses.
He's been hospitalized more than a dozen times for psychosis and delusions.
Now, Panetti, 56, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday for the 1992 murder of his estranged wife's parents. The case has sparked a global debate over whether people with severe mental illnesses should be put to death for their crimes. Despite appeals from the American Psychiatric Association, the European Union and others, Texas officials plan on carrying out Panetti's execution at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole voted 7-0 to deny clemency for Panetti. A spokesman for the board would not discuss his case specifically. Appeals with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Rick Perry's office are still pending.
"This is a man that has been severely and profoundly ill since 12 years before the crime," said Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It will be a travesty to proceed with this execution."
There are no statistics showing how many people with mental illnesses have been executed over the years, though those executions routinely happen, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based non-profit that's critical of the death penalty. An estimated 10% to 15% of people on death row in the U.S. are believed to have some form of mental illness, he said.
Whether or not to execute defendants with severe mental illnesses -- such as schizophrenia -- has been a growing topic of debate, Dieter said. A recent survey by Public Policy Polling showed 58% of those polled oppose the death penalty for persons with mental illness, while 28% are in favor of it.
"It's being watched very closely," Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University psychiatry professor and member of the American Psychiatric Association, said of the Panetti case. "It has struck a chord. It's hard for many people to comprehend what good is done to put to death a man who is so ill."
Panetti was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, according to court records. He was hospitalized repeatedly in the ensuing years for bouts of delusion and hallucinations and qualified for federal disability benefits due to severe mental illness.
On Sept. 8, 1992, Panetti shaved his head, dressed in military fatigues, armed himself with a sawed-off shotgun and hunting rifle and shot his in-laws, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, at close range in front of his wife and young daughter, according to the records. The wife and daughter were later released unharmed.
Panetti rejected a plea offer of life in prison and was deemed competent to stand trial, where he wore a cowboy costume and spoke as his alter ego, "Sarge." He was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death.
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court halted his execution and called for another review of Panetti's competency. Last year, the Fifth Circuit again found Panetti to be competent enough to be executed.
"His mental state is deteriorating," said Kathryn Kase, one of his attorneys who says Panetti continues to hear voices and believes he's the father of actress/singer Selena Gomez. "It's absurd to say a man with this history is not mentally ill."
In competing filings, however, prosecutors with the Texas Attorney General's office argued that Panetti's claim of mental imbalance was "exaggerated" and he was repeatedly deemed by court-ordered psychiatrists and a jury of his peers to be competent enough to stand trial. The filings further detail taped phone conversations Panetti had with family members while in prison where he appears to be lucid and coherent.
"Panetti's assertion of severe mental illness are in doubt when compared to the multiple past findings on his sanity, competency to stand trial, and competency to be executed," it read.
The Supreme Court protects some groups – such as minors and inmates with intellectual disabilities – from the death penalty. But the high court doesn't specifically protect defendants with mental illnesses and defers to states to determine whether someone is competent enough to be executed.
A study published in June in the Hastings Law Journal showed that more than half – or 54 – of the last 100 executed offenders had been diagnosed with or showed signs of severe mental illness. Six of the defendants were diagnosed with schizophrenia, three with bipolar disorder and nine with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the report. Six of them had attempted suicide during their lifetimes.
"(Those with mental illness) can be punished. They're guilty of their crime," Dieter said. "But the death penalty seems extreme given what they're afflicted with. It's not their fault they have this illness."
During recent meetings with his lawyers, Panetti has said he believes Texas officials want to execute him for preaching the gospel on death row, not for executing his in-laws. He hears voices during the meetings and tries to hide his affliction from visitors, Kase said.
The fact that he hasn't had a competency hearing in seven years alone should halt his execution, she said.
"Executing someone with his mental illness crosses a moral line," Kase said.
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/02/texas-execution-mentally-ill-history-scott-panetti
Sane enough for Texas: the Lone Star State's history of executing mentally ill inmates
On Wednesday, Scott Panetti will become the latest American prisoner to be put to death in apparent disregard of the constitutional ban on executing the insane
Texas inmate’s storied history of mental illness likely won’t halt his execution
By Tom Dart, December 2, 2014
Nearly two decades after the US supreme court outlawed the execution of severely mentally ill people, Andre Thomas was placed on Texas death row for killing his estranged wife, his four-year-old son and his one-year-old stepdaughter while carrying out what he believed was an order from God to exorcise their demons.
He cut out his children’s hearts and part of his wife’s lung then tried to stab himself to death. When that failed he put the organs in his pocket and walked home. Reading the Bible in prison a few days later, he came across a passage from Matthew: “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.” He gouged out his right eye.
Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was subsequently treated and deemed fit to stand trial two months later. In court, prosecutors argued that his violent behaviour was explained by drink and drugs while clawing out his eye was simply a moment of madness. In 2005, a jury gave him the death penalty.
In 2008, he pulled out his left eye and ate it. The following year, in rejecting an appeal, a judge with the Texas court of criminal appeals wrote: “This is a sad case. [Thomas] is clearly ‘crazy’ but he is also ‘sane’ under Texas law.”
This is a sad case. [He] is clearly ‘crazy’ but he is also ‘sane’ under Texas law.
Another man wedged in this logic-defying legal conundrum is set to receive a lethal injection on Wednesday at 6pm local time in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville, near Houston. Barring the success of last-minute appeals, Scott Panetti will become the latest American prisoner to be put to death in apparent disregard of the constitutional ban on executing people with mental illness.
Panetti’s attorneys have issued a flurry of appeals to various courts and a determined campaign for clemency is backed by evangelical religious leaders and influential conservative figures such as the libertarian Ron Paul.
But on Monday, the Texas board of pardons and paroles voted unanimously not to delay Panetti’s sentence or recommend it be commuted to life. Earlier in the day the Wisconsin native’s lawyers asked the supreme court for a stay. They also appealed to the outgoing Texas governor, Rick Perry, to grant a 30-day reprieve.
The plea to Perry is probably a long shot. In 2004 he rejected a rare recommendation of clemency from the pardons board for Kelsey Patterson, a schizophrenic man who heard voices and believed the military had planted a mind-control device inside his head. Three years earlier, Perry vetoed a bill that would have banned executing the mentally disabled.
‘I am the Prince of God and I will rise again’
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Judicially killing mentally ill inmates is not a phenomenon unique to Texas – last year, Florida put to death John Ferguson, a man with paranoid schizophrenia whose last words were “I am the Prince of God and I will rise again.” But even since the supreme court’s 1986 ruling, Texas prosecutors have shown a tenacious desire to secure death penalty convictions regardless of medical evidence, and juries have frequently been persuaded to mete out the ultimate punishment. The state’s appeals courts and the highly conservative federal fifth circuit appellate court have shown scant inclination to overturn original trial verdicts – no matter how problematic.
Among contentious cases in recent years: Texas death row inmate Steven Staley is a delusional paranoid schizophrenic man with an IQ of 70, right on the intellectual disability threshold. For years, prosecutors sought the right to medicate him forcibly so they could make him competent enough for execution, but in 2013 the Texas court of criminal appeals stopped the involuntary medication on the basis that a district court had overstepped its authority.
In 2002, Texas executed Monty Delk, who on death row covered himself in feces and claimed to be a submarine captain and an agent with the FBI and CIA. His last words were: “I’ve got one thing to say, get your warden off this gurney and shut up. I am from the island of Barbados. I am the warden of this unit. People are seeing you do this.”
Before Panetti shot dead his parents-in-law in the Texas hill country in 1992, he had been hospitalised more than a dozen times for illnesses including schizophrenia, delusions and manic depression
Then – off his medication – he insisted on representing himself at his 1995 trial. Frequently incoherent, wildly unfocused and rambling, and referring to an alter ego called “Sarge”, he dressed in a purple cowboy suit and called veterinarians to the witness stand rather than mental health experts. His actions seemed to intimidate jurors, who at the time did not have the option to sentence him to life without parole. Soon after he was convicted, he was found incompetent to represent himself for the appeals process.
‘Rational understanding’ in an irrational system
Mentally ill criminals do not have the same level of protection from capital punishment as other categories of vulnerable people, notably juveniles and people who are intellectually disabled.
In 2005, in a 5-4 ruling, the US supreme court banned the execution of anyone under 18, citing “national consensus” and evidence that minors are too immature to be held fully accountable for their crimes.
In a 2002 case known as Atkins v Virginia, the court prohibited the execution of people they termed “mentally retarded” because it would violate the eighth amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” – though, problematically, the court left it up to individual states to determine the mental disability threshold. Texas issued criteria partly based on the character of Lennie from the John Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men.
But Panetti has not so far profited from a notable supreme court case bearing his name. In a key ruling from 1986, Ford v Wainwright, the supreme court held that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally incompetent. Then, in a 2007 judgment known as Panetti v Quarterman, the court added detail by declaring that death row inmates must have a rational understanding of the reason for their executions.
However, the justices left the definitions of key criteria such as rational understanding and competency up to lower courts. This absence of a clear standard has allowed a series of courts to find that even though there is no question that Panetti is seriously mentally ill, he is still eligible for the death penalty. As one federal court put it: “The test for competency to be executed requires the petitioner know no more than the fact of his impending execution and the factual predicate for the execution.”
In a decision worthy of Catch-22, the fifth circuit ruled last year that since Panetti was rational enough to argue at trial that he is insane, he is sane enough to be executed.
Other courts have since affirmed that the 56-year-old is eligible to be put to death because he has a “rational understanding” of his situation. But the argument that Panetti truly comprehends the cause and effect of his punishment would appear undermined by his delusion that he is being executed as part of a satanic plot that involves Texas prison officials conspiring to silence him because they want to stop him preaching the gospel.
“I think that intersection of law and psychiatry has always been very murky and subjective and in fairness mental illness is very hard to understand in comparison with [intellectual disability],” said Ron Honberg at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“In some cases, the mental illness surfaced while the person was incarcerated but in Scott Panetti’s case there has been a steady, consistent, unremitting pattern of delusional thinking,” he said.
“One lesson here is the supreme court needed to be more specific in explaining what it meant. Procedures and criteria need to be developed by lower courts in assessing the competency of such individuals.” An estimated 5-10% of death row prisoners have a serious mental illness, according to the advocacy group Mental Health America.
‘Well, he’s not that bad’
Stephen Bright, president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights, believes that people with mental disorders suffer in a legal system that is generally indifferent to those on the margins of society and inexact in the way it defines and understands mental illness.
“Mentally ill people can be perfectly normal for weeks or years then suddenly have a psychotic break. It’s not as easily put in a compartment [as other disabilities] so the courts just don’t deal with it,” he said. “It’s such an uncertain area, there’s always somebody who’s going to say, ‘Well, he’s not that bad.’”
Despite Panetti’s illness history stretching back long before he committed murder, state medical experts have indicated in court documents that they believe his symptoms are to some extent faked.
US senator and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, then Texas solicitor general, argued before the supreme court in 2007 that Panetti was a malingerer and that possessing “rational understanding” was too high a bar, which opened the door to con artists and risked throwing a wrench into the works of the state’s well-oiled machinery of death. Instead, Cruz proposed, only those inmates who are so deficient that they lack the capacity to comprehend their punishments should be put to death.
Panetti’s legal representatives argue that they should be afforded time and court-designated funds to further litigate their claim that he is incompetent. He last had a competency hearing in 2007, according to his lawyers, who say that his mental health has deteriorated further in recent months and that he believes prison officials implanted a listening device in one of his teeth and tracked him through bugs placed in Halloween pumpkins.
In 2006, he told an interviewer he had scars on his body from burns that were healed by John F Kennedy using coconut milk in the Pacific during the second world war, the New York Times reported.
Last week the Texas court of criminal appeals twice refused to issue a stay, saying that it did not have jurisdiction. But fissures among the court’s nine judges have become evident.
Tom Price, a Republican whose term expires next month after 18 years as a Texas appeals judge, issued a dramatic dissent in which he said that Panetti’s execution would be unconstitutional, arbitrary and have no benefit. Moreover, he no longer supports the death penalty at all.
He wrote: “Based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I now conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished because the execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty; the life without parole option adequately protects society at large in the same way as the death penalty punishment option; and the risk of executing an innocent person for a capital murder is unreasonably high.”
Another conservative, Elsa Alcala wrote in her dissent: “This court, at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating the constitutionally 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.”
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Texas Death Row Case Draws Attention To Mentally Ill Convicts
By Wade Goodwyn, December 3, 2014
On Wednesday, Texas is scheduled to execute Scott Panetti for killing his in-laws. Panetti is mentally ill, and there are last-minute efforts underway to halt his execution.
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http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/mentally-ill-texas-inmate-scott-panetti-set-be-put-death-wednesday/
Mentally Ill Inmate Set to be Put to Death in Texas
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
On Wednesday at 6:00 P.M. central, a 56-year-old Texas inmate named Scott Panetti is scheduled to be put to death by the state. It's the final step in a long, winding, legal journey that began in 1992 when Panetti killed his mother-in-law and father-in-law and with a hunting rifle.
Before the murders, Panetti had been hospitalized over a dozen times for schizophrenia-related symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations. But that didn't stop the court from letting him serve as his own attorney in his 1995 trial. As part of his defense, he called figures like President Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ to the stand to testify.
Panetti was convicted of capital murder, but after a series of appeals, his case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In 2007, after hearing his case, the Supreme Court ruled that a mentally ill person must have a "rational understanding" of why he is being executed in order for the state to take his life.
The question of whether Panetti possesses that "rational understanding" has taken another seven years to settle. But now, the state of Texas says Panetti does meet the Supreme Court's criteria of "rational understanding," so he's once again been scheduled to be put to death.
Alisa Roth, a reporter researching mental illness and the criminal justice system through a Soros Justice Fellowship, explains why Panetti's execution would represent so much more than one man's fate.
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Segment 1: on.msnbc.com/1yGX8bW
Perry pressured ahead of Texas execution of mentally ill man
December 2, 2014
Rachel Maddow reports on the case of Scott Panetti, a manifestly mentally ill man scheduled for execution in Texas tomorrow unless Governor Rick Perry gives lawyers extra time to prove Panetti doesn’t understand why the state intends to kill him.
Segment 2: on.msnbc.com/1yH3et0
Execution looms for mentally ill man as lawyers scramble
December 2, 2014
Kathryn Kase, an attorney for death row prisoner Scott Panetti, talks with Rachel Maddow about the legal scramble to stay Panetti’s execution while the case is made that he is too mentally ill to understand why the state of Texas wants to kill him.
Segment 3: on.msnbc.com/1yHdOjE
Texas zeal for execution awkward for America
December 2, 2014
Rachel Maddow shows how the enthusiasm for killing prisoners that is particular to Texas was a point of awkwardness for George W. Bush with Karla Faye Tucker, and is problematic for Rick Perry as he is about to allow the execution of Scott Panetti.
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http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/texas-to-execute-mentally-ill-inmate-366367811534
Texas set to execute inmate with decades-long history of mental illness
December 2, 2014
Chris Hayes looks at the impending execution of Scott Panetti, a Texas inmate with a decades-long history of mental illness.
link to segment: on.msnbc.com/1yGKSIt
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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/texas-perry-under-pressure-scott-panetti-case
Texas’ Perry under pressure in Scott Panetti case
By Steve Benen, December 2, 2014
Over the last three decades, the state of Texas has executed 518 people – a shockingly high number, even by international standards – even while celebrating a “culture of life.” Tomorrow, Scott Panetti is slated to become the 519th.
Scott Panetti is just about out of options. On Wednesday at 6 p.m. CST, the state of Texas will end his life, even though his lawyers say Panetti is severely mentally ill and an execution would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. One of the only people who can stop the execution, at least temporarily, is Gov. Rick Perry (R).
But with time running out, Perry is so far staying silent, despite mounting pressure on him to intervene.
Panetti is on death row for the 1992 murder of his in-laws, whom he killed while his wife and daughter were watching…. On Monday afternoon, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted not to recommend that Panetti’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison.
Michele Richinick reported this afternoon on an unexpected political twist: 21 conservatives, including notables such as former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), “joined mental health and death penalty reformers in opposing the execution, and wrote a letter to Perry asking him to change Panetti’s sentence to life in prison…. ‘Mr. Panetti is one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row in the United States. Rather than serving as a measured response to murder, the execution of Mr. Panetti would only serve to undermine the public’s faith in a fair and moral justice system,’ they recently wrote.”
It’s an interesting argument. We’re not talking about opponents of capital punishment; we’re talking about people who are afraid that Texas killing a sick man will make it harder to sustain public support for broader system of executions.
We’ll have more on this on tonight’s show, but the msnbc report added some helpful context:
Panetti has been admitted to the hospital at least 14 separate times, and has a more than 30-year history of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. He hasn’t gone through a mental evaluation since 2007. Consequently, his attorneys are seeking to remove him from death row, or at least postpone his execution date to undergo additional psychological testing to determine if he is competent for execution. Panetti’s legal team wasn’t aware of the judge’s decision to execute him on Dec. 3 until they read about the plan in a newspaper article. But they filed a motion earlier this month requesting that Perry stay the execution for 30 days, a period of time they say is sufficient enough for another assessment.
At trial, Panetti represented himself, dressed like a cowboy, and subpoenaed John F. Kennedy.
The Atlantic added, “Panetti has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illness for over thirty years. He first exhibited signs of a psychotic disorder as a teenager. Beginning in 1978, he was hospitalized for mental illness on fifteen separate occasions. He developed a delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan. He tried to exorcize his home by burying furniture in the backyard because, he claimed, the devil was in it. He was involuntarily committed after swinging a sword at his wife and daughter and threatening to kill them.”
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http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/conservatives-request-rick-perry-halts-execution-mentally-ill-inmate
Conservatives request Rick Perry halt execution of ‘mentally ill’ inmate
By Michele Richinick, December 2, 2014
A dozen conservative leaders are calling on Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas to stop the execution this week of an inmate they claim is “one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row in the United States.”
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday night in Texas. In September 1992, dressed in camouflage, Panetti killed his in-laws with a hunting rifle at their Texas home, and forced his wife and toddler daughter to watch. Panetti then engaged in a standoff with the police before eventually surrendering. His wife and 3-year-old daughter were released unharmed.
During his capital murder trial three years later, Panetti admitted to the act. Jurors convicted him and sentenced him to death.
Twenty-one conservatives joined mental health and death penalty reformers in opposing the execution, and wrote a letter to Perry asking him to change Panetti’s sentence to life in prison. In addition, more than 94,000 people have signed an online petition asking the Republican governor to spare the inmate’s life.
“Mr. Panetti is one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row in the United States. Rather than serving as a measured response to murder, the execution of Mr. Panetti would only serve to undermine the public’s faith in a fair and moral justice system,” they recently wrote.
Panetti has been admitted to the hospital at least 14 separate times, and has a more than 30-year history of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. He hasn’t gone through a mental evaluation since 2007. Consequently, his attorneys are seeking to remove him from death row, or at least postpone his execution date to undergo additional psychological testing to determine if he is competent for execution. Panetti’s legal team wasn’t aware of the judge’s decision to execute him on Dec. 3 until they read about the plan in a newspaper article. But they filed a motion earlier this month requesting that Perry stay the execution for 30 days, a period of time they say is sufficient enough for another assessment.
However, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday voted unanimously against delaying Panetti’s scheduled execution. Perry can’t reduce the sentence on his own; board members must first recommend clemency, per Texas law.
Perry’s office didn’t immediately respond to msnbc’s request for comment.
Panetti previously dressed like a cowboy and acted as his own attorney during his trial. While representing himself, he attempted to subpoena the pope, John F. Kennedy, and Jesus Christ, among hundreds of others. He once nailed shut the curtains in his house and buried his furniture in the backyard because he thought the devil occupied the items.
“There is an unprecedented conservative response to this case,” Marc Hyden, advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, told msnbc. “This is another example of an utterly broken system. This person shouldn’t have been allowed to represent himself.”
“It is clear,” the conservatives continued, “that he has been suffering from severe mental illness since long before he committed the offense that landed him on death row.” But prosecutors argue that Panetti fakes his illness.
Among the nearly two dozen people who signed the recent letter to Perry were former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer. Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is set to replace Perry as governor in January, represents the state in seeking to uphold the 1995 capital conviction.
Former Texas GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Panetti’s ex-wife have both asked to spare his life. Paul also wrote a letter to Perry. This is the first case the former congressman has spoken publicly in such a case, Hyden said.
The United States is one of 40 countries in the world that still employs capital punishment. More than two-thirds — or 141 countries — have abolished the death penalty, according to Amnesty International. Annual death sentences have dropped significantly since 2000, when about 150 executions were administered. There were 39 executions in 2013, a 10% decline from 2012 when there were 43 deaths from lethal injections.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing people with mental disabilities violates their Eighth Amendment rights against “cruel and unusual punishments,” yet justices left the door open for states to define who qualifies as mentally disabled. The standard remains that the death penalty is constitutional if it imposes on individuals no more pain than is necessary. The justices ruled in Panetti v. Quarterman in 2007 that an inmate must have “rational understanding” of the state’s reasons for execution.
There are currently at least 270 offenders on death row in Texas. If Panetti is executed this week, he will become the 519th person to die by lethal injection since the state adopted the procedure in 1982.
Officials in the 32 states that enforce the death penalty have scrambled recently to find new suppliers of lethal injection drugs after several pharmaceutical companies stopped carrying the medication because of criticism based on ethical concerns. In some cases, authorities have executed prisoners hastily with drugs — often obtained in secrecy — never before used for the purpose.
Questions about why and how the United States implements the death penalty have arisen following several high-profile executions earlier this year. Most states use a standard three-drug cocktail. But newer concoctions have proven to have troublesome effects on the offenders. In Ohio, for instance, a shortage of Pentobarbital forced the state to use a new combination of drugs. But then it took the inmate more than 26 minutes to die.
Earlier this year in April, Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner were scheduled to be executed with previously untested drugs two hours apart from one another at the state penitentiary in Oklahoma. Lockett, the first to die, suffered a heart attack after officials injected him with a lethal drug. As the drug was being administered, Lockett reportedly shook uncontrollably and gritted his teeth before the eventual failure of his vein. After the botched execution, Oklahoma’s attorney general agreed to a stay of execution for Warner, issued until Jan. 15, 2015.
Perry previously defended the use of capital punishment and lethal injection, saying he was unsure whether the botched execution in Oklahoma fell short of proper human rights practices.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/rick-perry-death-penalty_n_6255454.html
Rick Perry Silent Under Pressure To Delay Execution Of Severely Mentally Ill Man
By Amanda Terkel, December 2, 2014
WASHINGTON -- Scott Panetti is just about out of options. On Wednesday at 6 p.m. CST, the state of Texas will end his life, even though his lawyers say Panetti is severely mentally ill and an execution would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. One of the only people who can stop the execution, at least temporarily, is Gov. Rick Perry (R).
But with time running out, Perry is so far staying silent, despite mounting pressure on him to intervene.
Panetti is on death row for the 1992 murder of his in-laws, whom he killed while his wife and daughter were watching. He has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses for over 30 years and been hospitalized more than a dozen times.
On Monday afternoon, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted not to recommend that Panetti's death sentence be commuted to life in prison. The board also rejected a request to delay the execution for 180 days.
Panetti is now left with few options. The most direct route goes through Perry, who can delay the execution for 30 days, in order for further evaluations of Panetti's mental state to be made. (By law, however, the governor cannot single-handedly lift the death sentence.)
After the parole board's ruling Monday, Panetti's lawyers wrote to Perry, requesting a 30-day delay to allow Panetti to receive a new mental health assessment. (He has not had one since 2007.) Their letter reads:
Our visits to see Mr. Panetti over the past three weeks confirm that he remains delusional, that he is regularly experiencing auditory hallucinations, and that his psychiatric condition is worsening day by day. Without a 30-day reprieve so that we may investigate and litigate his competence to be executed, Mr. Panetti will go to the execution chamber convinced that he is being put to death for preaching the Gospel, not for the murder of his wife’s parents.
Despite Mr. Panetti’s longstanding and incurable mental illness, as well as his history of incompetence, the inexplicable fast-tracking of his execution means the question of his competence to be executed has not received the full and fair hearing that the Constitution requires. so that Scott Panetti’s constitutional right to be competent when executed can be protected through further investigation and litigation.
Perry has so far remained silent about what, if anything, he will do. When asked for comment, spokeswoman Lucy Nashed simply replied, "This case is pending before the courts."
The lawyers, Gregory W. Wiercioch and Kathryn M. Kase, are especially incensed about the way they found out their client's execution date. A judge signed an order on Oct. 16 setting Panetti's execution date for Dec. 3, but the district attorney never notified Wiercioch and Kase that their client had been scheduled to be put to death. Instead, they learned about the pending execution on Oct. 30, through an article in the Houston Chronicle.
"[T]he District Attorney remained silent about the execution date," Wiercioch and Kase wrote in their letter Monday. "Fourteen critical days passed before undersigned counsel read an article in the newspaper about the scheduling of Mr. Panetti’s execution. Fourteen days passed during which counsel could have been investigating the issues surrounding Mr. Panetti’s competence -- issues which the District Attorney surely knew would have to be litigated to ensure that Mr. Panetti’s execution would not violate the Eighth Amendment."
If Perry fails to act, Panetti could theoretically also find relief through the courts. In addition to sending the letter to the governor, Wiercioch and Kase have asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to delay the execution so that their client can receive a competency assessment. On Monday, the lawyers also urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
A PR representative said Kase was not available for an interview Tuesday.
Perry is under pressure from a broad coalition of people around the country, including some of his fellow conservatives. Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, all Republicans, are among the prominent conservatives who have called on the governor to delay Panetti's execution. More than 94,000 people have also signed an online petition in support of the delay.
If Texas goes ahead with the execution, Panetti would be the 519th person to die by lethal injection in the state since 1982.
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Will Insanity Save This Texas Death Row Inmate?
December 2, 2014
Texas plans to execute a paranoid schizophrenic tomorrow. Activists are pleading with Governor Perry or the Supreme Court to intervene. Is this "cruel and unusual punishment"? How should the law handle mad people who commit capital crimes?
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/scott-panettis-lawyers-make-last-ditch-pleas-to-stop-texas-e
Scott Panetti’s Lawyers Make Last-Ditch Pleas To Stop Texas Execution
The schizophrenic man is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for killing his wife’s parents. His lawyers are asking an appeals court, the Supreme Court, or Texas Gov. Rick Perry to stop the state from executing him.
By Chris Geidner, December 2, 2014
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Scott Panetti have multiple requests pending before Justice Antonin Scalia, asking the justice to stop Texas from executing their client at 6 p.m. CT Wednesday.
Panetti was sentenced to death in 1995 for the double-murder of his then-wife’s parents, faced more than a decade of hospitalizations related to his schizophrenia before the 1992 killings, and has been challenging his competency or execution sentence for much of the time since trial.
In addition to the stay requests at the Supreme Court, there also are requests for the court to grant his habeas corpus petition and declare that he cannot be constitutionally executed due to his serious mental illness.
Panetti’s lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to “review this case to determine whether the imposition of the death penalty on offenders with severe mental illness offends contemporary standards of decency.”
Put together, the requests ultimately ask the court to issue a stay of execution in Panetti’s case, accept and hear his case, and rule that it violates the Eighth Amendment to execute a person like Panetti. Scalia could rule on the stay requests himself, or — more likely — refer the requests to the full court.
Texas officials, in a Tuesday filing, opposed the requests and were incredulous of his ultimate request, stating that it “would undermine the sentences of a majority of the nation’s death row inmates.” They went on to claim that Panetti did not cite to “a single example” where a court extended the categorical protection from execution extended to those with intellectual disabilities to those with serious mental illness.
Additionally, the state continued to press earlier claims that “Panetti’s mental health condition has long been exaggerated to his benefit.”
Beyond the Supreme Court, Panetti’s lawyers still have another request pending before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, appealing a district court’s denial of counsel appointment to press a competency claim and a related stay of execution. That request makes Supreme Court action unlikely until the 5th Circuit resolves those claims because it is expected Panetti’s lawyers also would ask for Supreme Court review of that decision.
Finally, there is Gov. Rick Perry, from whom Panetti’s lawyers are asking for a stay of execution. The state Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended against reprieve or commutation on Dec. 1, leaving Perry only with the option of a 30-day stay of execution.
In this effort, Panetti’s lawyers are not alone. Among those asking Perry to spare Panetti’s life are a group of conservatives — from Gary Bauer to Ken Cuccinelli — who wrote to Perry, “As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought. It would be immoral for the government to take this man’s life.”
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http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/2/will_texas_execute_a_schizophrenic_man
Will Texas Execute a Schizophrenic Man Who Tried to Subpoena Jesus, JFK & the Pope at His Own Trial?
December 2, 2014
We look at the case of a Texas prisoner scheduled to be executed Wednesday despite the wide belief he is mentally ill. Scott Panetti was convicted of killing his wife’s parents in 1992, more than a decade after he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mental health history until that point included hallucinations that prompted his dismissal from the Navy, and 14 hospitalizations for schizophrenia and depression, often under a court order. His previous wife divorced him after he buried their furniture because he said it was possessed by the devil and also nailed his curtains shut. Panetti’s murder trial drew headlines when he was allowed to represent himself after dismissing his court appointed attorney. He dressed as a cowboy in a purple suit and a hat, and the witnesses he tried to subpoena in his defense included John F. Kennedy, the Pope, and Jesus Christ. At one point, he assumed his alternate personality of "Sarge" and testified in the third person about carrying out the murders. Then in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Panetti lacked the understanding of why he was being put to death, and asked a lower court to re-evaluate whether he was sane enough to execute. But the courts accepted the argument from the state’s lawyers that Panetti was faking his illness and reinstated his death sentence. We speak to Panetti’s attorney, Kathryn Kase, and Ron Honberg, national director for policy and legal affairs of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Link to interview with Kathryn Kase and Ron Honberg: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/2/will_texas_execute_a_schizophrenic_man
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30297638
'Mentally ill' Texas inmate appeals against execution
December 2, 2014
Lawyers for a schizophrenic Texas inmate set to be executed this week have called on the US Supreme Court to halt the lethal injection.
Scott Panetti, 56, is slated for execution on Wednesday for the fatal shootings of his in-laws in 1992.
High court justices in 2002 prohibited the execution of the mentally impaired, but have allowed it for mentally ill inmates with a rational understanding.
Panetti's lawyers argue the mentally ill should also be exempt under law.
A number of conservatives leaders have also joined the fight to save his life, writing a letter asking Texas Governor Rick Perry to commute the death sentence to life in prison.
"As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought," according to the letter.
"It would be immoral for the government to take this man's life."
The Texas inmate was severely mentally ill "before, during and after the crime for which he has been sentenced to death", lawyers Gregory Wiercioch and Kathryn Kase told the Supreme Court on Monday.
Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and hospitalised more than a dozen times before killing Joe and Amanda Alvarado.
"Imposition of the death penalty on people with severe mental illness, as with people with intellectual disability, does not serve the two goals of deterrence and retribution because of their reduced moral culpability," his lawyers told the court.
The Supreme Court added a provision mandating that an inmate have a rational understanding of why he was being put to death in 2007 under a previous appeal from Panetti.
His case has gone to the high court for review at least five times since his 1995 conviction, records show.
A separate appeal for the inmate - requesting a delay in execution to evaluate his mental competency - is currently before a federal appeals court.
Ellen Stewart-Klein, an assistant Texas attorney general, told that appeals court Panetti's medical records "strongly indicate rational awareness of his impending execution and the reason for it".
"Panetti's mental status has at best been severely exaggerated by his counsel," she added.
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“A mockery”: Conservative group condemns planned execution of mentally ill Texas man
Scott Panetti is set to be put to death tomorrow
By LUKE BRINKER, December 2, 2014
A conservative group is urging the state of Texas not to execute a mentally ill man tomorrow, declaring that the man’s capital case “has made a mockery” of the justice system.
Barring a last-minute intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, the state will execute Scott Panetti on Wednesday. Panetti, 56, killed his wife’s parents in 1992 while his wife and young daughter watched. During his trial, Panetti represented himself and called more than 200 witnesses, including the pope, Jesus, and John F. Kennedy, the New York Times reports.
Yesterday, Panetti’s lawyers urged the Supreme Court to spare his life, arguing that executing a schizophrenic man violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Panetti’s lawyers also asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant a 30-day stay of execution, in the hopes that they could use the 30-day window to demonstrate why Panetti shouldn’t be executed.
A diverse coalition, including anti-death penalty activists, former Democratic Gov. Mark White, and religious leaders, has spoken out against Panetti’s planned execution. Among the most vocal groups to take up Panetti’s mantle has been Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, an organization launched last year to urge conservatives and libertarians to rethink capital punishment.
In a statement Tuesday, the organization’s national coordinator, Marc Hyden, strongly condemned the handling of the case, noting that several prominent conservatives oppose Panetti’s execution.
“The outcry from the conservative community on this case has been unprecedented,” Hyden said. “Texas’ attempt to execute this man is bringing together large swaths of political, religious, and thought leaders. Leading and varied voices like [American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel] Jay Sekulow, [evangelical leader] Sam Rodriguez, Ron Paul, and [conservative direct mailing pioneer] Richard Viguerie are among the long list of those who have spoken out.”
“I have never seen so many come together around a death penalty case like this. And for good reason,” Hyden added. “The execution of Scott Panetti would cross a line. His mental illness has been well documented and established for decades. Conservatives believe in a criminal justice system that is fair, just, and effective. This case has made a mockery of that system.”
Though several conservative stalwarts have decried Panetti’s execution, Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who takes over as governor next month, are fervent supporters of capital punishment, and Abbott’s office has represented the state in the effort to affirm Panetti’s sentence.
Luke Brinker is Salon's deputy politics editor. Follow him on Twitter at @LukeBrinker.
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Texas Is About To Execute A Mentally Ill Man Who Thinks He’s Being Killed Over A War With ‘Demons’
BY IAN MILLHISER, DECEMBER 2, 2014
In 2007, the Supreme Court held that Texas cannot execute a man if “he suffers from a severe, documented mental illness that is the source of gross delusions preventing him from comprehending the meaning and purpose of the punishment to which he has been sentenced.” Yet the man who won that Supreme Court case, an inmate named Scott Panetti, is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday evening, despite the fact that his mental condition reportedly has deteriorated in the past seven years.
In its 2007 decision in Panetti v. Quarterman, the Supreme Court quotes one expert who explained that Panetti’s doctors prescribed such a large dose of an anti-psychotic drug that few people would even be able to tolerate it — “I can’t imagine anybody getting that dose waking up for two to three days. You cannot take that kind of medication if you are close to normal without absolutely being put out.” In the mid-1980s, according to Panetti’s wife, he became “convinced the devil had possessed their home and that, in an effort to cleanse their surroundings . . . buried a number of valuables next to the house and engaged in other rituals.” Another expert testified that Panetti believes he is being executed as “part of spiritual warfare . . . between the demons and the forces of the darkness and God and the angels and the forces of light.”
Panetti represented himself at his trial, where he wore a cowboy suit and a purple bandana and attempted to subpoena Jesus Christ, the late President John F. Kennedy and the Pope.
And yet, Panetti may be executed because of a quirk in the Supreme Court’s death penalty decisions. In 2002, the Supreme Court held that “death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal.” People with intellectual disabilities, the Court explained, “have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others.” Three years later, the Court reached a similar decision regarding offenders who committed a capital offense before the age of 18.
The same rationale the Court used in explaining why it is not acceptable to execute juvenile offenders and people with intellectual disabilities should also apply to Panetti — and to others like him with severe mental illnesses. Panetti has “schizo-affective disorder,” according to one expert’s testimony. As a result, he is often unable to distinguish reality from a grand battle involving angels and demons. Once, this disorder led him to conclude that Satan himself possessed his family’s home. On one tragic morning in 1992, it led him to murder his wife’s parents. Panetti, in other words, has diminished capacity “to understand and process information” and to “abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others.” By the Supreme Court’s own reasoning, he fits the criteria of a man who should be constitutionally ineligible for execution.
And yet, the Supreme Court has not extended this rule to severely mentally ill individuals like Panetti. The justices have said that he should not be executed if he suffers from “gross delusions preventing him from comprehending the meaning and purpose of the punishment to which he has been sentenced,” but this is a much weaker protection from execution than the absolute bar the Court announced in cases involving people with intellectual disabilities. Among other things, it hinges upon Panetti’s present state of mind, giving Texas the opportunity to argue that he is currently lucid enough to be killed.
Texas, however, does not appear eager to defend its decision to execute Panetti in court. According to an editorial in the New York Times, no one from the state notified Panetti or his attorneys that he’d been scheduled for execution. The lawyers discovered that their client was about to be killed when they read about it in the newspaper.
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http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/03/texas-to-execute-severely-mentally-ill-m
Texas to Execute Severely Mentally Ill Man Tonight Despite Public Outcry
Lauren Galik | Dec. 3, 2014 9:05 am
Tonight at approximately 6 p.m. CST Texas is scheduled to execute Scott Panetti, a man who has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses for over 30 years.
First diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, Panetti was hospitalized over a dozen times by 1992 and involuntarily committed to a mental hospital at least twice. On one such occasion in 1986, Panetti had buried his furniture in the backyard because he believed the devil was inside it.
In 1992, shortly after Panetti stopped taking his medication, he shaved his head, dressed in army fatigues, and killed his in-laws with a hunting rifle in front of his wife and three-year-old-daughter. He turned himself in shortly after, and told police officers that “Sarge” was responsible for the killings.
After a jury found him competent to stand trial, a judge allowed him to represent himself in court. At his trial, Panetti wore a cowboy costume and a purple bandana and attempted to subpoena Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy, and the Pope, along with 200 others. His statements were often incoherent and rambling, and at one point he even fell asleep. In 1995, Panetti was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death.
The central issue at hand—one which Panetti’s lawyers and the state of Texas have been arguing over for decades—is whether Panetti is insane and therefore ineligible for legal execution. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court ruled that executing a mentally insane prisoner violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the court never defined what constituted mental “competency.”
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over the state of Texas, thus developed its own test for competency, which requires prisoners facing execution to have factual awareness of the impending execution and the state’s reasoning for it, or that they’re able to say they understand they're being executed by the state because of the crimes they’ve committed, regardless of whether they believe it or not. Because Panetti knew that he committed two murders, was set to be executed, and was aware of the state’s reason for executing him, the Fifth Circuit court ruled in 2004 that he was competent to be executed. However, witnesses for the state, a psychologist, and a clinical psychiatrist testified that Panetti believed the real reason the state wanted to execute him was to stop him from “preaching the gospel.”
That competency test wasn’t good enough for the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2007, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s decision and ruled that to stand competent for execution, a prisoner must also have rational understanding of the state’s reason for execution. This meant the state must now prove that Panetti’s schizophrenic delusions don’t inhibit him from understanding the reason for his punishment.
In 2008, the Fifth Circuit held a second competency hearing for Panetti. Like in 2004, multiple expert witnesses testified Panetti believed the state was executing him to stop him from preaching the gospel. Despite their testimony, the court found Panetti had “both a factual and rational understanding of his crime, his impending death, and the casual retributive connection between the two,” and once again ruled him competent to be executed.
The state’s reasoning behind their ruling relied not on the expert witnesses testimony, but on secretly-taped conversations between Panetti and his parents in which, according to the court, he “initiates a very rational, organized conversation with his parents about various states abolishing the death penalty,” among other things. The statements made in these taped conversations prove Panetti has rational understanding of the state’s rationale for his execution, the court said.
Panetti has not had a competency hearing since 2008, though lawyers assert his mental state has deteriorated since then. It's clear that they're not the only ones who believe Panetti is too mentally ill to be executed. In recent months, Panetti’s case has generated huge amounts of outcry from groups and individuals normally silent about the death penalty in Texas, including former Texas Gov. Mark White, who called Panetti’s trial a “sham,” and 55 evangelical leaders. Even Ron Paul wrote to Gov. Rick Perry asking he grant Panetti clemency.
It’s unknown as to whether or not any of this outcry will help stop the execution from taking place. Currently, appeals are pending with the Fifth Circuit Court as to whether a new hearing will be granted in lieu of his execution tomorrow. Unless the court allows another competency hearing to take place, Gov. Perry issues a 30-day reprieve to review the case, or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Panetti will be strapped to the gurney come 6 p.m. tonight.
If Panetti’s execution is carried out, it won’t be the first time Texas has executed a mentally ill prisoner. In 2004, the state executed Kelsey Patterson despite his history of psychotic behavior. During both his competency hearing and trial, Patterson testified that devices implanted in him by his lawyers were controlling his actions remotely.
Regardless of whether Panetti is ultimately executed, the entire process that’s played out in his case represents a gross miscarriage of justice. “This is a case where we've had cascading, catastrophic error and it all concerns the criminal justice system's failure to protect a severely mentally ill man,” Kathryn Kase, one of Panetti’s lawyers, told me yesterday afternoon. If Texas carries out the execution this evening, it will be an outrage.
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UN says Texas execution of mentally ill man would be 'cruel and unworthy'
By Ned Resnikoff, December 2, 2014
On the eve of the slated execution in Texas of a mentally ill inmate who is said not to understand why he is to die, United Nations human rights officials have stepped in and urged the state government to spare his life.
“There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies to execute persons with mental disabilities,” said Juan E. Méndez, U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in a statement Tuesday.
It comes as Texas prepares to execute Scott Panetti, who received a capital sentence in 1995 for the murder of his wife’s parents. Defense attorneys argue that Panetti committed the crime due to a debilitating mental illness, and that his psychological state makes him unfit to be executed.
Their attempts to save his life got them as far as the Supreme Court, which in 2007 ruled that Panetti could only be killed if he was found to possess a “reasonable understanding” of the reasons for his execution. The court had previously ruled, in a separate case, that it is unconstitutional to kill an inmate who is too mentally ill to be aware of his impending execution or the reasons for it.
After ruling in favor of Panetti, justices returned the matter to the lower courts. Texas prosecutors argued that Panetti did pass the “reasonable understanding” test, although his defense attorneys maintain that he has no idea why the state intends to put him to death. Panetti reportedly believes he will be killed because the state is conspiring to stop him from preaching the Gospel to his fellow inmates.
The United Nations is not the only outside organization backing Panetti’s defense. Such disparate voices as Ron Paul, the American Bar Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have all spoken out in opposition to the execution. Panetti’s defense attorneys have asked both Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the United States Supreme Court to delay the execution, though neither has responded to the request as of yet.
The state of Texas typically disregards pleas for clemency when it comes to death row inmates. In January of this year, the state went so far as to execute Mexican national Edgar Tamayo, despite the Mexican Foreign Ministry's insistence that doing so would "be a clear violation of the United States' international obligations."
“We believe that justice requires that Mr. Panetti’s execution be stayed until complete and current information about his mental health has been thoroughly considered by a judge to determine whether Mr. Panetti is competent to be executed,” wrote American Bar Association President William C. Hubbard in a November letter addressed to Gov. Perry.
Absent of any stay of execution, Panetti’s death sentence will be carried out at 6 p.m. local time at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
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http://www.statesman.com/news/news/why-a-planned-texas-execution-is-firing-broad-oppo/njKZN/
Why a planned Texas execution is firing broad opposition
By Chuck Lindell, December 3, 2014
The planned Wednesday execution of a schizophrenic Texas inmate has galvanized national opposition to capital punishment for those with serious mental illness.
Evangelical Christians, conservative leaders, the American Bar Association and former prosecutors have joined mental health professionals and Democratic lawmakers to oppose the execution of Scott Panetti, who in 1992 shot his wife’s parents to death in their Fredericksburg home while his wife and 3-year-old daughter watched.
At the state’s highest criminal court, two late-November decisions to allow Panetti’s execution drew blistering dissenting opinions accusing the majority of depriving Panetti of fair access to the courts. Panetti’s situation even prompted Judge Tom Price to declare that the death penalty ought to be abolished.
“It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person such as (Panetti) would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty,” wrote Price, an 18-year Republican member of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Sensing the time might be right for a change in national policy, defense lawyers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to determine if the execution of Panetti — and others with severe mental illness — should be banned under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
“I think the world is appalled, and the rest of the United States is appalled, that we would execute a man with a 36-year history of mental illness,” said Kathryn Kase, Panetti’s lawyer and executive director of the Texas Defender Service. “I think that offends the public considerably.”
The Supreme Court was still considering the request Tuesday night.
Panetti’s execution is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday. Defense lawyers also have an appeal pending at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that mental health professionals should be appointed to determine whether Panetti is competent to be executed. Lawyers also asked Gov. Rick Perry to grant a 30-day reprieve to allow more time to investigate his mental health.
“Our visits to see Mr. Panetti over the past three weeks confirm that he remains delusional, that he is regularly experiencing auditory hallucinations, and that his psychiatric condition is worsening,” the lawyers told Perry in a Monday letter.
Twenty-eight years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that it is unconstitutional to execute a prisoner who is mentally incompetent. In 2007, ruling on an earlier appeal by Panetti, the court clarified the standard, saying competency requires understanding the reason why the death penalty will be enforced.
Gillespie County prosecutors, aided by the state attorney general’s office, have urged state and federal courts to allow Panetti’s execution, arguing that he hasn’t offered proof that his condition has deteriorated since 2008, the last time a court found him to be mentally competent for execution.
Prosecutors also argue that prison recordings of conversations between Panetti and his parents show he has a reasonably sophisticated understanding of his case and the legal issues.
Kase disagrees.
“His mental illness has prevented him from rationally believing that the state wants to kill him for murdering his in-laws. He believes that the state wants to kill him to prevent him from preaching the gospel on death row,” Kase said.
According to court records, Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and hospitalized more than a dozen times to treat the illness. He also received Social Security disability payments after an agency psychiatrist determined that he wasn’t competent to manage his affairs.
Panetti’s lawyers are hoping the Supreme Court will expand on previous rulings that barred executions for juveniles and people with mental disabilities because “evolving standards of decency” had changed society’s perceptions of fairness.
“A growing consensus exists that offenders with severe mental illness should not be subject to execution,” they told the court.
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From our archives: The slayings that sent Scott Panetti to death row
Dec. 3, 2014
This story originally ran in the American-Statesman on Aug. 9, 1992 — the Statesman’s first report on the crime that sent Scott Panetti to Texas’ death row, where he awaits execution amid legal appeals and international calls for clemency.
FREDERICKSBURG — A series of recent domestic problems escalated Tuesday into the first murders in this Hill Country tourist enclave in more than 20 years, law enforcement officials said.
Authorities say Scott Panetti, 34, who was on medication for mental problems, shot and killed his in-laws, then went to a hunting cabin west of town where he kept law officers at bay for about nine hours before turning himself in.
Though Panetti had warned that the siege would end in a blood bath, he walked out of the cabin by midafternoon calmly and without incident. Texas Department of Public Safety negotiators had made contact with Panetti before he surrendered.
From our archives: The slayings that sent Scott Panetti to death row photo
Joe and Amanda Alvarado, who were murdered by their son-in-law Scott Panetti in 1992.
“He had made statements, he was ready to die today and would take people with him, ” but he came out unarmed and with his hands up, said Gillespie County Sheriff Milton Jung.
Authorities said Panetti had a history of alcohol and drug abuse. In recent weeks, officers had been called to investigate domestic problems between Panetti and his estranged wife, but no arrests had been made.
Fredericksburg Police Chief Bob Werner said Panetti shot Joe and Amanda Alvarado before dawn, apparently with a deer rifle, then took his wife, Sonja, and their young daughter to the cabin. He released them about 7:30 a.m.
From our archives: The slayings that sent Scott Panetti to death row photo
Death row inmate Scott Panetti in a Nov. 19, 1999, file photo.
The preschool-age child, Amanda, nicknamed Birdie, was unharmed. Sonja Panetti, who witnessed her parents’ slayings, had a black eye and a bruise on her right temple, Werner said.
The couple had been married about four years. In recent weeks, Panetti had been forced out of the Alvarados’ house, where he and his wife and daughter had been living. Sonja Panetti and the couple’s daughter remained with the Alvarados.
The Alvarados “were just like any mother and father, they were protecting their daughter, ” said Marty Diaz, who is married to a relative of the Alvarados.
The Alvarados’ neighbors said they heard two or three shots about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Justice of the Peace Carl Schoessow ordered an autopsy on the couple and said it was possible the victims were each shot more than once.
Neighbor Margaret Nixon said her husband, Clarence, was awakened when he heard a female, possibly the child, frantically crying out, “No, no, no.”
Nixon said she then heard two gunshots. The Alvarados’ next-door neighbor Helen Jenschke said she heard three shots.
Investigators did not confirm how many shots were fired.
Panetti was described as an odd individual who was seen frequently around Fredericksburg dressed in fatigues and sporting a long knife.
Before giving up Tuesday, Panetti shaved his head and dressed in a coat and tie.
“He was a strange man, ” Jung said.
“Scott was weird, ” said Michael Ortega, who is married to Sonja Panetti’s daughter by a previous marriage. “He changed from one minute to the next. He was hard to understand.”
Authorities and family members said Panetti, a Navy veteran, had been treated at nearby Kerrville Veterans Administration Hospital for mental problems.
“He’s been a young man who’s been in and out of problems with the law - mainly drug- and alcohol-related, ” Werner said.
Panetti was last arrested in 1989 on charges of terroristic threats to a police officer, Werner said.
Jung said Panetti had lived alone for about two weeks since separating from his wife.
A court order had been issued last week to prevent Panetti from bothering his wife, the sheriff said.
“They’ve had some problems, ” Werner said. “You never can predict how a family disturbance will end up.”
Joe Alvarado, 55, was a stone mason, who neighbors said was always ready to help. He took care of his wife, Amanda, 56, who had to have frequent kidney dialysis.
Gregorio Martinez, Joe’s prayer partner at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, said his friend often prayed for his daughter.
The Alvarados’ home is in a quiet neighborhood in west Fredericksburg. The cabin is about five miles west of town on Loudon Road off U.S. 290.
Fredericksburg is about 75 miles west of Austin.
“It’s such a peaceful town and it’s sad this happened, ” said Elsie Filter, a resident for more than 40 years. “Something like this never happens.”
But another longtime resident said the murders are just another sign of increased crime in this community and elsewhere.
“It’s getting worse all the time, ” said Albertine Birck, 77, a Gillespie County native. “Not just here, everywhere. It seems everybody has a gun.”
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http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/03/schizophrenic-inmate-be-executed-wednesday-night/
Schizophrenic Inmate Set for Execution Wednesday
By Terri Langford, Dec. 3, 2014
A death row inmate with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations for schizophrenia, and who donned a cowboy outfit to defend himself at trial, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night for the 1992 shooting deaths of his in-laws.
Scott Louis Panetti, 56, convicted of killing Joe and Amanda Alvarado of Kerr County, is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. in Huntsville.
Several lawyers, religious leaders and former lawmakers have asked Gov. Rick Perry to use his authority and stay the execution for 30 days. By late Tuesday, the governor's office declined to comment on whether Perry would act on the request.
"This case is pending before the courts," said Lucy Nashed, Perry's spokeswoman.
Only action from Perry or the courts can prevent the execution from moving forward. On Monday, Panetti's lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, saying their client is not competent. Executing him, they argued, would violate his Eighth Amendment protection to be free of cruel and unusual punishment.
"This Court should review this case to determine whether the imposition of the death penalty on offenders with severe mental illness offends contemporary standards of decency," wrote Panetti's lawyers, Kathryn Kase and Gregory Wiercioch.
It's been nearly seven years since their client was last assessed for competence, the defense team argued.
But the Texas attorney general's office late Wednesday countered that claims of Panetti's incompetence have been "tried, appealed, reviewed in state and federal habeas proceedings and conclusively put to rest" by numerous courts.
The attorney general's brief included an affidavit from the state's director of mental health services for the Texas prison system, Dr. Joseph V. Penn, stating that none of the 14 mental health staff who have met with Panetti since 2004 have "identified any clinical signs and symptoms indicating a psychiatric diagnosis or required the need for additional mental health or psychiatric treatment such as psychotropic medications."
Court filings by the defense show that the Wisconsin native was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 20. At the time of the murders, he had been collecting federal disability checks because the illness prevented him from holding down a job.
Panetti represented himself during his capital murder trial, sometimes dressed in a cowboy outfit. He rejected an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, and instead put on an insanity defense although he called no mental health witnesses. Panetti did try to call President John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ as witnesses.
Appeal filings over the years detail how Panetti was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 when he was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center following an accident in which he suffered electrical burns while working as an electrical lineman.
The diagnosis came shortly after Panetti spent only 10 months in the U.S. Navy. He would eventually be hospitalized at least a dozen times for mental illness.
According to the filing before the U.S. Supreme Court, Panetti's first wife, Jane, had her husband committed in May 1986 to a psychiatric facility after he nailed curtains in their home shut, buried household furniture in the backyard and conducted an exorcism of the devil from their home that involved spraying water over valuables that he had not buried.
A flurry of subsequent hospitalizations followed at Kerrville State Hospital and the Veterans Administration medical centers in Waco and in Kerrville.
In 1990, two years before Panetti would kill the parents of his second wife, Sonja Alvarado, he was involuntarily committed again at Kerrville State Hospital. The action was taken after Panetti began "swinging a cavalry sword around the house and threatening to kill" his wife, their baby, his wife's father and himself. Panetti's wife eventually left him to live with her parents.
On Sept. 8, 1992, Panetti shaved his head, put on camouflage combat fatigues and then, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a deer rifle, went to the Alvarado's home and killed them both in front of their daughter and granddaughter.
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http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/03/brief/
The Brief: Broad Opposition Gathers Against Panetti Execution
By John Reynolds, Dec. 3, 2014
The Big Conversation
An execution planned for Wednesday evening is focusing attention on the use of the death penalty on those with serious mental illness. Scott Louis Panetti, 56, is facing execution for killing his in-laws in 1992. As the Tribune's Terri Langford reports, Panetti was a diagnosed schizophrenic when he was 20. And at his trial, he showed unusual behavior.
"Panetti represented himself during his capital murder trial, sometimes dressed in a cowboy outfit," Langford writes. "He rejected an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, and instead put on an insanity defense although he called no mental health witnesses. Panetti did try to call President John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ as witnesses."
In recent days, a wide coalition — including evangelical Christians, conservative leaders, the American Bar Association, former prosecutors, mental health professionals and Democratic lawmakers — has urged that Panetti be spared, at least for now, writes Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman.
Lindell wrote that some are seeing the Panetti case as the right opportunity for the country to stop the execution of those with mental illness. The appeals process spurred Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Justice Tom Price to declare himself opposed to the death penalty in general.
Price wrote in a dissent last month that “it is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person such as (Panetti) would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty.”
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Killer's planned execution sparks debate
Ebony C. Fleming, December 2, 2014
Once again, Texas has set the stage for yet another highly controversial execution.
A federal appeals court is debating whether to spare convicted killer Scott Panetti. Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia 14 years before he killed his estranged wife's parents, according to his attorneys.
Despite his attorneys' argument, no court has ruled Panetti mentally incompetent or insane.
Should his execution be carried out as scheduled on Wednesday, Panetti will be added to the growing list of previously controversial Texas executions.
Click through the slideshow to see what cases caused supporters and advocates to claim inmates were wrongly put on death row and executed.
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http://keranews.org/post/texas-set-execute-schizophrenic-inmate-wednesday-night
Texas Set To Execute Schizophrenic Inmate Wednesday Night
By Eric Aasen, December 3, 2014
A death row inmate with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations for schizophrenia, and who donned a cowboy outfit to defend himself at trial, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night for the 1992 shooting deaths of his in-laws. The Texas Tribune reports: “Scott Louis Panetti, 56, convicted of killing Joe and Amanda Alvarado of Kerr County, is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. in Huntsville. Several lawyers, religious leaders and former lawmakers have asked Gov. Rick Perry to use his authority and stay the execution for 30 days. By late Tuesday, the governor's office declined to comment on whether Perry would act on the request. … On Monday, Panetti's lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, saying their client is not competent. Executing him, they argued, would violate his Eighth Amendment protection to be free of cruel and unusual punishment.” [Texas Tribune]
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UN rights experts urge Texas not to execute mentally ill man
by Taylor Brailey, December 2, 2014
[JURIST] UN human rights experts on arbitrary executions and torture on Tuesday urged [press release] the state of Texas and the US government to prevent the execution of Scott Panetti, who was sentenced to death for killing his parents-in-law in 1992. The experts contend that Panetti, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, has a history of mental illness and that it would be a violation of international law to execute him. Panetti specifically suffers from undifferentiated schizophrenia, depression, brain dysfunction, delusions, arbitrary hallucinations and homicidal ideation towards his family. UN officials explained that the execution would be considered arbitrary and "inherently cruel" under international standards. In his 1995 trial, Panetti chose to waive his right to counsel and represent himself. UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions, Christof Heynes [official website], expressed his belief that Panetti's choice to waive his counsel at trial "may have influenced the subsequent decisions of the courts."
The death penalty [JURIST backgrounder] has been a highly controversial issue worldwide. In October UN officials called for international abolition [JURIST report] of the death penalty. In May the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] urged the US to impose a moratorium [JURIST report] on the death penalty after a botched execution [JURIST report] performed in Oklahoma the previous week. In May the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that a Florida law permitting the death penalty for criminal defendants whose IQ is greater than 70 violates the Eighth Amendment [text] of the US Constitution.
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http://mic.com/articles/105496/texas-is-about-to-perform-its-most-controversial-execution-yet
Texas Is About to Perform Its Most Controversial Execution Yet
By Gregory Krieg, December 2, 2014
Time is running out.
By a 7-0 vote, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole has denied a recommendation of clemency for mentally ill killer Scott Panetti, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST, barring a last-ditch intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has the power to order a 30-day stay, but cannot commute the 56-year-old's sentence without the board's recommendation.
The Panetti case has drawn the attention of liberal anti-death penalty advocates and conservatives worried that the execution of a mentally ill prisoner, if it goes forward, could galvanize broader opposition to capital punishment in the United States.
The U.S. has executed 1,392 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. In 2014, Texas alone has executed 10 inmates. Panetti's execution would come nearly 28 months after the state put Marvin Wilson to death. Wilson had an IQ of 61, per the Daily Beast. His execution led to nationwide outrage over the sentencing of mentally ill inmates to death.
Now, with Panetti's legal options dwindling, Texas seems poised to kill a mentally ill convict for the second time in just over two years.
HUNTSVILLE, TX - NOVEMBER 13: The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, where the State of Texas execution chamber is located.Source: Getty Images
The crime: Panetti was originally diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, after being discharged following 10 months in the Navy. He would be hospitalized 15 times between then and 1992, by which time he had gone off of his medications.
As Time reports, "Panetti had been in and out of a dozen mental hospitals over 14 years, regularly determined to have paranoia, depression, delusions and hallucinations, and [he was] eventually deemed disabled by the Social Security Administration, qualifying him for monthly benefits before he turned 30."
One night in the summer of 1992, Panetti shaved his head, strapped on camouflage fatigues and went to the home of his estranged wife's family. Upon arrival, he murdered his father- and mother-in-law in front of his wife and daughter "with a sawed-off deer hunting rifle."
The first jury in Panetti's subsequent double-homicide trial punted when asked if he was mentally sound, but the next decided to hear the case. (In Texas, the jury is tasked with deciding a defendant's competence.)
This is a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel account of Panetti — who was, somehow, allowed to represent himself at trial — cross-examining his bereaved wife at trial. He referred to his alter-ego, the killer, as "Sarge" or "Sgt. Ranahan Iron Horse."
"Sonja, Joe, Amanda kitchen," he said. "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."
He paused, and then continued:
"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."
The jury convicted Panetti after just a couple hours of deliberations. He had called more than 200 witness to the stand, including Jesus Christ, the pope and former President John F. Kennedy. He attended court most days in a purple cowboy suit and 10-gallon hat.
Panetti in the courtroom: It was Panetti's courtroom burlesque that initially drew the attention of the national media. Prosecutors said he was faking it. But every available medical document and outside expert opinion suggests that Panetti's behavior was consistent with an individual suffering an assortment of untreated and dangerous psychotic conditions.
To wit, the defendant — in addition to calling those obviously unavailable witnesses — asked prospective jurors if they had "Indian blood," pointed an imaginary rifle at them and spoke mostly in the third person (again calling himself "Sarge" during some of the most tense testimony).
Lawyer Kathryn Kase, who has taken over representing Panetti, told Slate that he could not access his medical records during the penalty phase "because he's scrawled all over them with all sorts of bizarre writings."
Mother Jones reports that "two jurors later told one of Panetti's lawyers that his behavior had so frightened them that they voted for death largely to make sure he'd never get out of prison."
Texas did not, at the time of the trial, give juries the option to sentence convicts to life without the possibility of parole.
Unlikely advocates: Panetti has since gained an unlikely group of supporters. Headlined by a group of conservative judges and politicians, most notably former Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Virginia Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, Panetti now has the support of a vast and bipartisan group of high-profile leaders.
Even his former wife, who watched as Panetti killed her parents in 22 years ago, asked that he be spared.
In a letter addressed to and subsequently dismissed by the Texas appeals board, the conservative alliance wrote that "Mr. Panetti is one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row in the United States. Rather than serving as a measured response to murder, the execution of Mr. Panetti would only serve to undermine the public's faith in a fair and moral justice system."
It could also, as his lawyers argue, violate the Eight Amendment, which bans "cruel and unusual punishment." The high court has said that an inmate must not only understand he is going to be executed, he must be able to make sense of why.
That question is at the crux of the questions, and two petitions, now facing the Supreme Court, which sent his 2007 case back to the Texas appeal courts that upheld his initial sentence. Today, the justices have a second opportunity to block this state-sanctioned violation of Panetti's basic human rights. They won't be given a third.
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http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/228190279
Texas prepares to execute mentally ill killer Scott Panetti
By UPI Frances Burns, December 3, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas -- With Scott Panetti's execution a day away in Texas, lawyers for the mentally ill man filed last-ditch appeals Tuesday.
Panetti's lawyers are running out of options. They have asked Gov. Rick Perry for a stay and filed an appeal for a stay with the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to proceed with the execution.
A number of conservatives have weighed in against the execution, joining unlikely allies like United Nations human rights lawyers. They include former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families and president of American Values.
On Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News weighed in withan editorial, "Panetti and the insanity of executiing the seriously mentally ill." The newspaper contrasted the hard line on Panetti with the treatment of Bernhardt Tiede II, the inspiration for the movie "Bernie." The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled against Panetti, threw out Tiede's life sentence for killing a wealthy widow, Marjorie Nugent, finding last week that jurors should have been told he had been sexually abused as a child.
There is no doubt Panetti, 56, shot his wife's parents in 1992. There is also little doubt that he has a long history of mental illness dating back to 1978, when he was first diagnosed as a schizophrenic.
"What makes Scott Panetti different is this long history that is so well documented in his medical records -- a long history of a severe, debilitating mental illness," Kathryn Kase of the Texas Defender Service told the Los Angeles Times. "He thinks the prison system implanted a listening device in his teeth and knows what he's going to do before he does it. He's all wrapped up in this delusion that the prison system wants to 'rub him out' for trying to convert these heathens and preach the gospel."
But lawyers for the state of Texas argue he does not meet the standard laid down for mental illness by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Panetti knows that he killed his in-laws, while his wife and child looked on, and he knows that he has been sentenced to die for that crime," the Texas attorney general's office said in a court filing.
Panetti's last psychiatric evaluation was in 2007. His lawyers have also asked a U.S. appeals court to order another one, which would delay the execution.
Unless Perry or the courts intervene, Panetti is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the state prison in Huntsville.Frances Burns
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Scott Panetti Death Penalty Update: Texas Prepares To Execute Mentally Ill Man
By Julia Glum@superjul...@ibtimes.com, December 02 2014
Activists have urged Texas Gov. Rick Perry to stay the execution of a mentally ill man scheduled for Wednesday. The case of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic 56-year-old who fatally shot his wife's parents in 1992, has sparked discussion about the state's death penalty laws and the definition of competency. Panetti's lawyers argue the execution is unconstitutional due to the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but prosecutors say Panetti has exaggerated his mental illness.
Panetti was convicted in 1995 for the double murder of his in-laws. At trial, he represented himself, wore a cowboy costume and tried to subpoena the Pope. Panetti pretended to shoot the jury, testified about castrating his horse and said his alter-ego "Sarge," not him, killed the victims.
His execution is in the spotlight because the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed executions of people who cannot understand why they're being put to death in 1986. But it didn't explicitly define mental competency, which lawyers argue Panetti lacks. He suffers from schizophrenia, paranoia and delusions. He's been hospitalized for mental illness 15 times since 1978, and he sees his life as a spiritual war against Satan.
Panetti was last tested for competency in 2007, BuzzFeed reported, and his lawyers say his mental state has continued to decline. "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," said his lawyer Kathryn Kase in a statement."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."
But many witnesses told the court that Panetti actually does grasp that he's being punished for the murders. The state of Texas produced recordings of Panetti talking about the crimes. TIME reported that court documents showed Panetti "spoke rationally, demonstrated a fairly sophisticated understanding of his case, and discussed in an intelligent manner the death penalty and its moral implications."
In efforts to stop the execution, his lawyers filed appeals with Texas' district court and court of criminal appeals. Both were denied this week. Separate appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court and 5th Circuit Court of Appeals are pending.
Meanwhile, nearly 97,000 people have signed a change.org petition on Panetti's behalf. USA Today reported his public supporters include the American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association, as well as former Texas Gov. Mark White and former congressman Ron Paul. The latter two were among 21 conservative politicans who requested Perry change Panetti's death sentence to life in prison. "As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought," they wrote in a letter.
Texas executes more people than any other state in the U.S. About 280 inmates have received the death penalty under Perry.
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UN Calls Texas’ Scheduled Execution of Scott Panetti, a Mentally Ill Inmate, Unworthy of Civilized Societies
By Clarissa-Jan Lim, December 2, 2014
The most prolific death sentencing-state in the U.S. is set to exercise capital punishment on yet another prisoner, Scott Panetti, on Wednesday, Dec. 3 — but UN investigators have urged Texas to halt the mentally ill inmate’s execution in a statement on Tuesday, calling the execution of mentally ill prisoners “inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies.”
Scott Panetti, a man who was found guilty of murdering his parents-in-law in 1992, was handed the death sentence at his trial in Kerville, Texas, in 1995. Panetti was hospitalized over the course of a decade for chronic schizophrenia, depression and delusions prior to his crime. During his trial — at which, despite his history of mental instability, he was allowed to represent himself — Panetti donned a purple cowboy costume and a 10-gallon hat. According to the Los Angeles Times, he tried to call witnesses such as President Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ to the stand.
UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, said in the statement:
International law considers the imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on persons with mental disabilities a violation of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
That Panetti was permitted to argue his own case in court — which turned the trial into a “circus” of sorts, said the LA Times — alarmed the UN experts. UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns noted:
I am seriously concerned that Scott Panetti’s capital trial, held in 1995 after an authorization to waive his right to counsel and to represent himself, despite his severe mental health condition, may have influenced the subsequent decisions of the courts.
Panetti’s death sentence has also drawn strong criticism from right-wing politicians, the American Bar Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, all of whom condemned the court’s decision based on his history of mental illness.
Texas is infamous for the number of capital punishments it carries out — at its peak, in 2001, the state executed 40 inmates. In comparison, the other 32 states that have the death penalty have so far executed a combined 30 people in 2013.
In January this year, the Lone Star state went so far as to execute Edgar Tamayo, a Mexican national, despite the Central American country’s appeals. Prior to Tamayo’s execution, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry asserted that it would be “a clear violation of the United States’ international obligations.”
In his statement, Heyns said of Panetti’s death sentence:
It is a violation of death penalty safeguards to impose capital punishment on individuals suffering from psychosocial disabilities. Implementing the death penalty under these conditions may amount to an arbitrary execution.
Panetti’s defense attorneys have called for Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as the United States Supreme Court, to delay the execution — but, Al Jazeera America reported that neither has yet to respond to the request.
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The UN Pleads With Texas Officials to Delay the Execution of a Mentally Ill Man
If efforts to convince a higher up body that Scott Panetti is not mentally sound fail, Panetti will be put to death in Texas at 6 p.m. local time.
By Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele, December 3, 2014
he United Nations is making a last-minute plea to Texas officials to delay the execution of Scott Panetti, a prisoner that is said to have mental disabilities which should have made him ineligible for the death penalty, Al Jazeera reports.
“There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies to execute persons with mental disabilities,” Juan E. Méndez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, said in a press statement on Tuesday.
Panetti received a death sentence in 1995 for murdering his wife’s parents, but even then, his defense attorneys argued that a “debilitating mental illness” had caused him to commit the crime and that he should not have been a candidate for capital punishment.
The case made its way to the Supreme Court, where justices found that “Panetti could only be killed if he was found to possess a ‘reasonable understanding’ of the reasons for his execution,” Al Jazeera explains.
Panetti’s attorneys say that Panetti “reportedly believes he will be killed because the state is conspiring to stop him from preaching the Gospel to his fellow inmates,” the news site reports.
The UN is not the only organization that has weighed in on the matter and is lobbying Texas officials, the White House and the Supreme Court to issue a stay.
“Such disparate voices as Ron Paul, the American Bar Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have all spoken out in opposition to the execution. Panetti’s defense attorneys have asked both Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the United States Supreme Court to delay the execution, though neither has responded to the request as of yet,” Al Jazeera reports.
William C. Hubbard, the president of the American Bar Association, wrote a letter to Gov. Perry arguing that Panetti’s mental state should be reevaluated and assessed by a judge.
“We believe that justice requires that Mr. Panetti’s execution be stayed until complete and current information about his mental health has been thoroughly considered by a judge to determine whether Mr. Panetti is competent to be executed,” Hubbard wrote.
Read more at Al Jazeera.
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U.N. criticizes scheduled death penalty for schizophrenic inmate in U.S.
December 3, 2014
Austin, Texas, Dec 3 (EFE).- The United Nations has called on the United States to suspend the death sentence of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic inmate in Texas, while the authorities hear appeals to commute the capital punishment.
Panetti's life is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Texas Governor Rick Perry.
In case the execution is not suspended, Panetti will be administered a lethal injection on Wednesday at 6 p.m. (00:00 GMT Thursday) in Huntsville prison.
"Implementing the death penalty under these conditions may amount to an arbitrary execution," the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns said Tuesday.
"There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies to execute persons with mental disabilities," another United Nations official, Juan E. Mendez, said.
Panetti, 56, killed his in-laws and kidnapped his wife and three-year-old daughter in Texas in 1992 and attributed the crime to his alter-ego "Sarge."
During his 1995 trial, Panetti defended himself dressed as a cowboy and tried to call more than 200 witnesses including John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ.
Since then he has been hospitalized for psychosis and delusions on multiple occasions.
The United States ruled out the death penalty for mentally ill people, however since then several exceptions have been made where the criminal shows an understanding of the reasons for his execution.
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Texas Set to Execute Mentally Ill Inmate Scott Panetti Tonight
By Shafaq Hasan, December 3, 2014
On December 3rd at 6 p.m., Scott Panetti is scheduled for execution by the state of Texas. Unless Governor Rick Perry commutes his sentence or a mental examination is conducted, Texas will most likely execute a mentally disabled man.
There’s no denying the seriousness of the crime Panetti committed. In 1992, Panetti shot and killed his estranged parents-in-law parents in front of his wife and their three-year-old daughter. However, the trial that followed was little more than a mockery of the justice system. Panetti represented himself during both the trial and the sentencing phase. He wore a cowboy costume and purple bandana to court, attempted to subpoena more than 200 witnesses—among them, the Pope, JFK, and Jesus Christ—and believed he was a character from a John Wayne movie.
One might almost suspect he was set up to fail, and sure enough, Panetti was convicted. The jury sentenced him to death after one day of deliberation.
“His demeanor was frightening to the jurors and they saw him as a crazy man. Some of the jurors said that had he been represented by counsel, they doubted that he would have been sentenced to death,” said Charles Ewing, a forensics psychologist and law professor at SUNY Buffalo.
Like most death row inmates, the next 20 years of Panetti’s life were marred by appeals and motions concerning his mental illness. These appeals would focus on the 30 years that Panetti suffered from schizophrenia, with which he was diagnosed at the age of 20. Panetti struggled to keep his life together while taking medication. He was able get married and start a family; still, his paranoid delusions shadowed most of his life. Schizophrenia is often a deteriorative disease, and Panetti’s illness grew progressively worse. His wife had him committed to a psychiatric hospital, then divorced him and left with their three children.
“She committed him, and she told the doctors that ‘Now he had this delusion about the devil,’” said Kathryn Kase, Panetti’s death penalty lawyer. “And like many people with paranoid schizophrenia, he developed a very specific delusion, and this was all about religion.”
On the night that he killed his wife’s parents, he shaved his head and dressed up in camouflage, personifying one of his hallucinations, the soldier Sgt. Ranahan.
How did this trial happen? How was Panetti deemed competent to stand trial, let alone represent himself? The 1986 case Ford v. Wainwright established a precedent to prevent defendants like Panetti, whose illness prevented them from discerning right from wrong, from being executed. However, Ford’s guarantee to the mentally ill, extending from the Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment, is often subverted by delays in examining the inmate. Indeed, Panetti has not received a mental examination for seven years, during which time his disease may have progressed even further.
A wide variety of groups and individuals, from the American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association to Representative Ron Paul and former Texas governor Mark White have come together in their opposition to Panetti’s execution. Several nonprofits, like the Texas Moratorium Network focused on ending executions, nonprofit journalism site The Marshall Project, and the ACLU have been bringing attention to the case.
Last Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Panetti’s emergency request for a stay of execution in a 5 to 4 decision. Judge Elsa Alcala wrote astutely in her dissent, “This Court, at best, deprives appellant of a fair opportunity to litigate his claims, thereby violating the constitutionally required procedural protections recognized in Ford. At words, this Court’s decision will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person.” At the time of this writing, his lawyers are still scrambling to find some way to stop what seems to be inevitable.
As succinctly pointed out by Nancy Leong and Justin Marceau in their piece for the Atlantic, Panetti’s case is only one element of a long laundry of issues with the death penalty. The botched executions of Clayton Lockett and Joseph Woods, the uneven administration of death sentences across the country, and the untrained professionals conducting the executions are more than worrisome.
We should not be waiting for Panetti’s name to join those of Lockett and Woods. Of course, Panetti would not be the first mentally ill man to be executed in Texas. He might join Johnny Frank Garrett, Larry Keith Robison, Monty Allen Delk, James Blake Colburn or Kelsey Patterson. However, he could also join Steven Staley, whose execution was successfully stayed after a judge deemed him, also a paranoid schizophrenic, incompetent to be executed.
We have the rare and often-wasted opportunity to prevent an injustice from happening. If Governor Perry does not intervene, we will be left with the much greater consequences of an ignored and subverted legal system doling out justice arbitrarily
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US Supreme Court urged to spare schizophrenic 'Purple cowboy' killer
Texas faces growing outrage over its plan to execute a paranoid schizophrenic who his lawyers claim is so mentally ill he doesn't understand why he is being put to death.
By Nick Allen, December 2, 2014
Mentally ill murderer Scott Panetti is due to die by lethal injection in Texas on Wednesday but even some death penalty supporters say he should be considered too delusional to die
As Scott Panetti, 56, prepared to die by lethal injection on Wednesday his supporters launched a last minute appeal to the US Supreme Court claiming he was delusional and believed he was being killed for preaching the Gospel.
Panetti shot dead his parents-in-law, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in front of his estranged wife and three-year-old daughter in 1992 in the town of Fredericksburg.
At his trial three years later he represented himself wearing a purple cowboy costume and 10-gallon hat, and told the court he wanted to summon Pope John Paul II, Jesus Christ and President John F. Kennedy as witnesses.
He questioned himself on the witness stand using different voices, slept through some of the proceedings, and flipped a coin to choose a juror.
At one point he fired an imaginary gun at the jury while claiming to be controlled by an unseen force called "The Sarge".
Panetti also ignored a plea deal that would have seen him avoid the death penalty.
He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and hospitalised for treatment 14 times before the killings.
Victoria Panetti, his sister, said he had long been under a delusion that he was "engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan" and repeatedly tried to exorcise his home by burying furniture in the back garden and nailing curtains to the wall. She said: "He became obsessed with the idea that the devil was in the house."
As his execution date approached Panetti's lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court, the fifth time the case has been considered by America's highest federal court.
When looking at the Panetti case in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that mentally ill prisoners could be executed if they had a factual and rational understanding of why it was happening. His lawyers claim Panetti does not.
But Ellen Stewart-Klein, a lawyer for the state of Texas, said Panetti's mental illness had been "severely exaggerated" and medical records "strongly indicate rational awareness of his impending execution and the reason for it". He has never been found insane by a court.
More than 94,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Texas Governor Rick Perry to grant a last minute stay.
A group of 21 conservative community leaders also wrote to Mr Perry arguing that the execution would "undermine public faith" in the death penalty.
They said: "No one could accuse us of being soft on crime. It would be immoral for the government to take this man’s life."
Panetti would be the 11th person, including two women, to be executed in Texas this year.
United Nations human rights investigators called on Texas to halt the execution, saying it was "cruel and unworthy of civilised societies" to execute people with mental illness.
Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, said: "We urgently appeal to the Government of the United States and the state of Texas to find a way to stop the scheduled execution.
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http://www.964eagle.co.uk/news/world-news/1467973/un-asks-texas-to-halt-inmates-execution/
UN Asks Texas To Halt Inmate's Execution
December 2, 2014
UN human rights investigators have called on the state of Texas and the US government to halt the execution of an inmate with a history of mental illness.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled for lethal injection on Wednesday for the 1992 shooting deaths of his in-laws at their Fredericksburg home.
The UN experts contend that Panetti had "proven psychosocial disabilities" and killing him would breach international norms on the death penalty.
A statement issued by UN special rapporteur Christof Heyns and UN torture investigator Juan Mendez said: "Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, we urgently appeal to the Government of the United States and the state of Texas to find a way to stop the scheduled execution."
Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and had been in hospital more than a dozen times for treatment.
Mr Heyns said carrying out the death penalty of someone with mental illness may amount to an "arbitrary execution".
On Monday, Panetti's lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court to halt the execution and asked the justices to determine whether mentally ill people should be exempt from the death penalty.
There was "no doubt" Panetti was severely mentally ill "before, during and after the crime for which he has been sentenced to death", his attorneys said.
Panetti was 34 when he forced his way into the home of Joe and Amanda Alvarado, where his estranged wife was staying with their three-year-old daughter.
Authorities said Panetti assaulted his wife and when confronted by his in-laws, shot and killed them with a rifle. He then kidnapped his wife and daughter, taking them to cabin.
He released them and surrendered later that same day. He told police his alter ego, "Sarge", killed his wife's parents.
No court has ruled Panetti was or is incompetent or insane.
At his trial, he "wore the garish costume of a dime-store cowboy as he represented himself" and "engaged in bizarre, incoherent and frightening behaviour", his attorneys said.
In 2002, Supreme Court justices prohibited the execution of people who are mentally impaired, ruling that it violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Capital punishment for mentally ill prisoners has been permitted, however, as long as the inmate has a factual and rational understanding of why he is being put to death.
An assistant Texas attorney general told the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that although Panetti's medical records contain indications of mental illness, they "strongly indicate rational awareness of his impending execution and the reason for it".
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Outrage over planned execution of mentally ill killer
By Nick Allen, December 3, 2014
As Scott Panetti (56) prepared to die by lethal injection tonight, his supporters began a last-minute appeal to the US Supreme Court claiming that he was delusional and believed he was being killed for preaching the Gospel.
Panetti shot dead his parents-in-law, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in front of his estranged wife and three-year-old daughter in 1992 in the town of Fredericksburg.
At his trial three years later, he represented himself wearing a purple cowboy costume and 10-gallon hat, and told the court he wanted to summon Pope John Paul II, Jesus Christ and President John F Kennedy as witnesses.
He questioned himself in the witness box using different voices, slept through some of the proceedings and flipped a coin to choose a juror.
At one point he fired an imaginary gun at the jury while claiming to be controlled by an unseen force called "The Sarge". Panetti also ignored a plea deal under which he would have avoided the death penalty.
He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and admitted to hospital for treatment 14 times before the killings.
Delusion
Victoria Panetti, his sister, said he had long been under a delusion that he was "engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan" and repeatedly tried to exorcise his home by burying furniture in the back garden and nailing curtains to the wall.
As his execution date approached, Panetti's lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court, the fifth time the case has been considered by America's highest federal court. When looking at the Panetti case in 2007, it ruled that mentally ill prisoners could be executed if they had a factual and rational understanding of why it was happening. His lawyers claim Panetti does not.
Ellen Stewart-Klein, a lawyer for the state of Texas, said Panetti's mental illness had been "severely exaggerated" and medical records "strongly indicate rational awareness". (© Daily Telegraph, London)
Irish Independent
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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49487#.VH4M02TF8Yc
UN rights experts call on US to commute death sentence of mentally ill prisoner
December 2, 2014
2 December 2014 – Two United Nations human rights experts today urged the United States Government and the authorities in Texas to halt the execution of Scott Panetti, a prisoner with proven psychosocial disabilities, due to be carried out on 3 December.
“The death penalty may only be imposed when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence, leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts,” the UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns said, warning that execution of Mr. Panetti could violate his rights.
Mr. Panetti was reportedly hospitalized between 1981 and 1992 for several mental illnesses, including chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia, delusions, and homicidal tendencies towards his family. In September 1995, he was sentenced to death for killing his parents-in-law in 1992.
“It is a violation of death penalty safeguards to impose capital punishment on individuals suffering from psychosocial disabilities,” he said, adding that implementing the sentence “may amount to arbitrary execution.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, added his voice to the call.
“International law considers the imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on persons with mental disabilities a violation of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment,” he said.
“There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies to execute persons with mental disabilities,” added Mr. Méndez.
Mr. Heyns also raised questions about the judicial process Mr. Panetti originally faced.
“I am seriously concerned that Scott Panetti’s capital trial, held in 1995 after an authorization to waive his right to counsel and to represent himself, despite his severe mental health condition, may have influenced the subsequent decisions of the courts,” he said.
Since his conviction, Mr. Panetti has appealed the courts’ decisions on his competence to be executed, based on various expert assessments of his serious mental health conditions. Despite the claims of psychosocial disabilities and the existence of a federal ban on such executions, the death sentence was upheld.
“Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, we urgently appeal to the Government of the United States and the state of Texas to find a way to stop the scheduled execution, and we hope that serious consideration will be given to commuting the sentence,” the UN Special Rapporteurs said.
Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work
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http://www.dw.de/mentally-ill-scott-panetti-scheduled-to-be-put-to-death-in-texas/a-18107085
Mentally ill Scott Panetti scheduled to be put to death in Texas
December 3, 2014
A schizophrenic man on death row in Texas has been denied clemency. Scott Panetti is scheduled to be executed later on Wednesday. He was sentenced to death in a trial in which he called Jesus and JFK to the stand.
A 56-year-old mentally ill man is set to be put to death in Texas on Wednesday by lethal injection. Scott Panetti has spent nearly 20 years on death row in prison after killing his wife's parents.
Amnesty International has condemned the sentencing, writing on its website on November 28: "The State of Texas should immediately halt its shameful plans to execute a man with severe mental illness."
His lawyers have launched last-minute appeals against his death sentence, arguing that putting him to death would cross constitutional and moral lines. They have called on Texas Governor Rick Perry to issue a 30-day stay so that a competency hearing can take place.
A federal appeals court had been considering whether he should be spared from execution to undergo new examinations to determine the state of his mental health. Yet state attorneys say his condition "has not markedly changed" and that the execution should be carried out. No court has deemed him mentally ill nor ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
Ellen Stewart-Klein, an assistant Texas attorney general, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that records failed to support claims that Panetti's mental condition had deteriorated. She insisted Panetti's behavior could be a show.
"Panetti's mental health condition has long been exaggerated to his benefit and he continues this long established pattern here," Stewart-Klein said.
Schizophrenic hallucinations
Scott Panetti was institutionalized numerous times after being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978. That was nearly 15 years before he killed Joe and Amanda Alvarado at their home in Texas Hill Country in 1992.
His legal representation insist that he does not understand why he is to be put to death and that he believes Satan is working through the Texas state penal system to punish him for preaching the Gospel.
One of his attorneys, Gregory Wiercioch, who met with his client last week, said that his delusions had become "more pervasive."
Panetti has claimed prison system dentists had implanted a "listening device" in his tooth and were seeking to shut him up "about the corruption" and "preaching the Gospel." Wiercioch said Panetti told him that his tooth sent a message to his brain to write a letter of apology to President Barack Obama for getting into a fight with the future president in the sixth grade at a Chicago museum, the Associated Press reported.
Jesus, the Pope and John F. Kennedy as witnesses
In his trial in 1995, Panetti fired his court-appointed legal representation, claiming they were against him and instead represented himself wearing an ostentatious cowboy costume and a purple bandana around his neck. He testified at his own trial as alternate personality "Sarge" to describe the murders. He was subsequently sentenced to death.
In a 5 to 4 ruling on November 25, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to issue a stay of execution. He was last denied clemency on Monday.
His execution is to take place at 6 p.m. local time (0100 GMT). If put to death, he will be the 11th person to be institutionally killed in Texas this year and the 519th person in that state since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Panetti's case has attracted mass criticism, even among members of Texas Governor's own Republican Party. Human rights experts point to a 1986 court ruling which says that states cannot put to death murderers whose insanity means they cannot understand why they are being put to death. In 2002, justices prohibited the execution of the mentally impaired.
Texas accounts for nearly 40 percent of all executions in the US, according to Amnesty International. The US was one of only nine countries that carried out executions yearly between 2009 and 2013.
sb/jm (AP, dpa, Reuters)
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http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/texas-catholics-to-gov.-perry-dont-execute-mentally-ill-inmate/
Texas Catholics to Gov. Perry: Don’t Execute Mentally Ill Inmate (13)
Convicted murderer Scott Louis Panetti is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection.
By CNA/EWTN NEWS, December 3, 2014
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Catholic Conference has called on Gov. Rick Perry to stay the execution of mentally ill death row inmate Scott Louis Panetti, saying his execution is “not merely unjust, but immoral.”
“Mr. Panetti’s lengthy history of mental illness, his delusional behavior while defending himself at trial in 1995, and the multiple diagnoses from mental health professionals confirming his severe mental illness, provide even more reason to stop his execution,” the conference said in a Nov. 21 letter to the Texas governor, who is a Republican.
“Putting to death anyone whose faculties are so severely debilitated by mental illness as to not comprehend nor be responsible for his actions is not merely unjust, but immoral,” the conference continued, adding that the Church opposes the death penalty as “a desecration of human life.”
In September 1992, Panetti killed his in-laws Joe and Amanda Alvarado in their home in front of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old daughter. He was heavily armed and dressed in camouflage.
He had been hospitalized for mental illness more than a dozen times before the murders, and is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
During his 1995 trial, he acknowledged that he had killed the two. However, he acted as his own attorney and dressed as a cowboy, believing that only an insane person could make an insanity defense, the Associated Press reports. He also tried to subpoena John F. Kennedy and the Pope.
Panetti is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection the evening of Dec. 3.
Kathryn Kase, one of Panetti’s lawyers, has said Panetti believes he is being punished as part of a satanic conspiracy to prevent him from preaching the Gospel on death row.
Prosecutors have said that Panetti is faking insanity. Court-appointed experts for the state have voiced suspicions that some of his behavior was contrived. An assistant district attorney for Gillespie County, which handled his trial, has said that the inmate’s discussion of politics during a Nov. 4 prison visit with relatives showed he was oriented in time and place.
However, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has unanimously recommended his sentence be commuted.
The Texas Catholic Conference voiced “tremendous sympathy” for the family of Panetti’s two victims. It also noted the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Christ “teaches that a true neighbor is one who shows mercy.”
“Showing mercy does not mean neglecting to administer justice or punish people for their crimes. Showing mercy does mean exhibiting compassion toward all of our brothers and sisters, and providing them with an opportunity for atonement and rehabilitation,” added the Catholic conference, which called for Panetti’s sentence to be commuted for him to obtain appropriate medical treatment for mental illness.
“While government has an obligation to protect the community from violent offenders, it also bears a responsibility to ensure justice and proper treatment for our brothers and sisters suffering from mental illness,” the conference said.
Opponents of the execution include his ex-wife, who signed a petition against the execution, and more than 20 politically conservative leaders who opposed the execution in a joint letter.
Abby Johnson, a pro-life advocate who left her job as a Planned Parenthood clinic director in Texas, also opposed his execution in a Nov. 18 essay in the Dallas Morning News.
“The execution of Panetti would be more than an embarrassment to our state. It would undermine our commitment to protecting life, especially the most vulnerable, by extinguishing the life of someone clearly suffering from mental illness,” she said.
The Texas Catholic Conference’s Texas Mercy Project has written a prayer asking for mercy for Panetti, and for mercy and compassion from those with authority over his execution.
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http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/12/02/schizophrenic-man-hours-from-execution-in-texas.htm
Schizophrenic Man Hours From Execution in Texas
By ERIK DE LA GARZA, December 2, 2014
AUSTIN (CN) - The upcoming execution of a schizophrenic man in Texas led attorneys to seek relief Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Rick Perry.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Huntsville.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest court, denied Panetti's final appeal last week, 5-4.
Judge Tom Price's impassioned dissent said Panetti's mental illness renders him "categorically ineligible for the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."
"It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely ill person such as applicant would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty," Price wrote.
Panetti has been down this road before. The Wisconsin native was one day away from execution in 2004 when a federal judge stayed the death sentence to evaluate whether Panetti had the competence to be executed. Despite finding Panetti was under the influence of severe mental illness at the time of the crimes, the court concluded he was competent for execution.
Today more than 90,000 people have signed an online petition started three weeks ago by the inmate's sister, Vickie Panetti, urging the Texas governor for compassion.
The list of supporters asking for Panetti's death sentence to be commuted to life without the possibility of parole grows as Wednesday's execution draws closer. Dozens of mental health professionals, legal scholars and conservative groups, including former presidential candidate Ron Paul and Evangelical Christian organizations, called on officials to intervene before putting Panetti to death.
The international campaign for clemency includes the European Union and its 28 member states, plus 10 Texas legislators and former Democratic Gov. Mark White.
Panetti was 34 when he shaved his head, dressed himself in camo and used a sawed-off shotgun to murder his in-laws in their Fredericksburg, Texas, home as his wife and 3-year-old daughter watched.
After the killings, he kidnapped his now ex-wife and child at gunpoint, holding them hostage in the bunkhouse where he had been living before releasing them unharmed.
Panetti was arrested that same day after a lengthy standoff with police.
He put on a suit and surrendered to authorities, but told them that "it was his alter ego, 'Sarge' who did the killing," according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice summary of the case.
One of Panetti's lawyers, Greg Wiercioch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, says the 1992 murders were a result of a "psychotic break" produced by the mental illness. He says Panetti has been battling the disease since 1978 when doctors at Brooke Army Medical center discovered signs of early schizophrenia.
Panetti was 20 years old and has been severely mentally ill ever since, Wiercioch and attorney Kathryn Kase, of the Texas Defender Service, say in Monday's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari.
Panetti was convicted of capital murder in 1995 but not before attempting to call more than 200 witnesses, including John F. Kennedy, the Pope and Jesus Christ, in what his attorneys called "a 'circus,' where he was the dime-store-cowboy-costumed ringmaster."
Attorneys said jurors became frightened and "visibly upset" by Panetti's courtroom performance.
Panetti represented himself at trial wearing a television Western cowboy costume, and once he pointed at jurors with his hand shaped like a gun, pantomiming the killings with gestures and sound effects.
A Kerr County judge denied Panetti's request for withdrawal or modification of the execution date on Nov. 6. Attorneys hoped to contest his competency for execution.
Panetti hasn't been evaluated in seven years. He 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," his attorneys say in court documents.
Kase said there is still time for Perry to use his executive power to grant a 30-day reprieve to examine Panetti's competency for execution.
"There is still time to stop this unconscionable execution of a severely mentally ill man who would die without comprehending what his death means," Kase said in a statement.
In their letter to the governor, Panetti's attorneys say the state has "a duty to ensure than an abhorrent punishment that diminishes us, as a civilized community, is not carried out."
Panetti would become the 11th and final inmate executed this year in the most active death-penalty state in the nation. There are 11 executions already scheduled in the first five months of 2015.
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http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2014/12/scott_panetti_execution.php
Mentally Ill Death Row Inmate Scott Panetti Isn't Too Mentally Ill To Be Executed Wednesday
By Craig Malisow, Dec. 2 2014
During Scott Panetti's 1995 capital murder trial, Kerr County District Judge Stephen Ables interrupted Panetti as he asked a witness about a belt buckle.
"Can you explain to me how the belt buckle is relevant to any issue in this case?" Ables asked the man in the purple cowboy suit, the man who mercilessly shotgunned his mother- and father-in-law to death three years before. Panetti explained the buckle's relevance like this: "It has to do with the difference between a rodeo hand and a buckaroo poet."
But that wasn't all. The buckle evidence was vital, per Panetti, because "Before religion, when you got religion, prior religion, church member, I'm going to have witnesses from the church come in and Chaplain Bob got on his knees and read that buckle, Ranger Cummings, read this buckle and people go out of their way. At rodeos, cowboys make sure they look at your buckle without you looking at it."
That exchange, cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2007 opinion, describes in a nutshell the brain-twisting debate over whether Panetti is competent enough to be executed.
Here's the background: On a September morning in 1992, Panetti, a man with a history of treatment for mental illness, woke up, shaved his head, and took a shotgun to his estranged wife's parents' home. Panetti asked Sonja Alvarado who should die first -- she or her parents -- but he decided to answer the question himself by turning the gun on Joseph and Amanda Alvarado. He then kidnapped Sonja and his three-year-old daughter, eventually releasing them to police.
After he was found competent to stand trial, Panetti was allowed by Judge Ables to represent himself. He gained notoriety by wearing a cowboy costume and subpoenaing Jesus Christ. (Panetti originally planned on calling the Pope and John F. Kennedy as well, but apparently decided the Prince of Peace's would be testimony enough).
Panetti argued that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors maintained that Panetti was malingering -- while they conceded to elements of mental illness, they weren't buying his claim to legal insanity. The jury sided with the state. (An appellate judge later cited prison tape recordings of Panetti's phone conversations with his parents in which he apparently seemed in full control of his faculties).
After myriad legal challenges that reached SCOTUS, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled last week that Panetti is indeed fit to be killed, although one Republican judge disagreed to the point where he wrote that he no longer believed in the death penalty.
"It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person such as [Panetti] would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty," wrote Judge Tom Price, who's serving his last year on the court.
Panetti's lawyers have argued in appeals that Panetti understands that, officially, he was sentenced to death for the murder of his in-laws, but that Panetti believes that's a cover for the truth: that the state is merely a pawn of Satan, who wants Panetti killed so he can no longer preach the gospel.
Judges have argued over how much capital convicts need to know -- is it enough that they are aware of the fact that they were convicted of a crime, and are aware of the fact that the execution is based on the conviction, or must they have a "rational understanding" of those facts?
To us, arguing about whether a mentally ill dude is smart enough to be lethally injected seems to be an empty exercise: how much sense does it make for a person to be both competent enough to be tried in a death penalty case, yet not competent enough to actually be executed?
In jurisprudence, "competency" and "sanity" can lack common-sense, real world applications. And we don't even need to rely on the Panetti case to explore that. We need only to look at the case of Andre Thomas, who believed he was following God's orders when he killed his wife, four-year-old son, and his wife's 13-month-old daughter, then carved out the kids' hearts and tucked them in his pockets.
A few days after his arrest, while in jail, Thomas read a passage in his Bible that inspired him to gouge out his right eye. He was later found competent to stand trial. Like Panetti, he was sentenced to death. While on death row, he plucked out his remaining eye and ate it, because he was afraid the government could reattach it and read his mind.
In her 2009 opinion denying Thomas' habeus relief, CCA Judge Cathy Cochran wrote "While there is no dispute that [Thomas] was, in laymen's terms, 'crazy' at the time he killed his wife and the children, the legal question is whether he knew that what he was doing was 'wrong' or a 'crime' at the time he acted."
Cochran also described Thomas' behavior in the months leading up to the murders: "He put duct tape over his mouth and refused to speak; he talked about how the dollar bill contains the meaning of life; he stated that he was experiencing deja vu and reliving events time and again; he had a religious fixation and heard the voice of God....In the weeks before the murders, [Thomas] was heard by others talking about his auditory and visual hallucinations of God and demons."
Thus, it is possible to gouge out one's eyeballs, making sure to eat one to prevent government mind-reading, and actually see demons, yet not be legally "crazy."
As the CCA's Judge Price wrote about Panetti's case last week, "I can imagine no rational reason for carving a line between the prohibition on the execution of a mentally retarded person or an insane person while permitting the execution of a severely mentally ill person."
But compared to Thomas' case, arguing about Panetti's ordeal seems as silly as wearing a cowboy costume to court. Still, if we were to argue that Panetti got a raw deal, we would stress that belt-buckle exchange.
Here's why: Panetti was deemed competent to represent himself at trial, but he was also allowed to argue that he was insane. Yet, from what we can tell, he was not fully allowed to explore the implication of various witnesses' belt buckles because the trial judge did not find it relevant. It doesn't seem particularly relevant to us, either. But then again, we don't think we're insane, so we'd never bring it up. However, we can see why an insane person may have trouble asking questions that make any sense.
Yet Panetti was deemed competent enough to question witnesses, so therefore he should have been allowed to introduce as much belt-buckle evidence as he felt was necessary. If the trial judge did not seize on a preoccupation with belt buckles as either a sign of incompetency or a more basic inability to act pro se, then Panetti should have been allowed to continue that line of questioning. He should have been allowed to fully demonstrate to the jurors who held his fate the difference between buckaroo poets and rodeo hands. State witness after state witness should have been grilled on their expertise -- or lack thereof -- in buckaroo poetry.
Or would have that been crazy
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Conservative Opposition to Panetti Death Penalty Intensifies
December 3, 2014
As the hours tick away toward Scott Panetti’s scheduled execution a group of conservative leaders is mounting a last-minute effort to urge Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to stop the execution of Panetti, arguing that killing "one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row in the United States" would "undermine the public's faith in a fair and moral justice system."
Panetti has suffered from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses for over 30 years and has been hospitalized on 15 separate occasions. In spite of his illness, Panetti is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday (today) at 6 p.m. CST.
Twenty-one conservative leaders have now joined with mental health and death penalty reformers in opposing the execution, asking Perry in a recent letter to commute Panetti's sentence to life in prison, saying, "As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought." Signatories on the letter include ConservativeHQ.com Chairman Richard A. Viguerie, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, former Texas Gov. Mark White and former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Abby Johnson, an anti-abortion activist, wrote in a recent Dallas Morning News op-ed that opposing Panetti's execution is a pro-life position.
"A fundamental tenet of the pro-life ethic is that all life has value and we are called to protect it, especially in its most vulnerable forms. A culture of life recognizes the value of those who are vulnerable and prioritizes safeguarding them," she wrote.
"By setting an execution date for Panetti, Texas is going entirely contrary to what we expect in a society that truly values life," Johnson added. "This proposed execution shows a troubling disregard toward the reality of mental illness and protecting those who suffer from it."
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Tom Price, a Republican, argued in his dissent from last week’s 6-3 denial of a stay of execution for Panetti that, “I would grant applicant’s motion for a stay of execution and would hold that his severe mental illness renders him categorically ineligible for the death penalty under the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.”
Unlike in other states, Perry can't single-handedly reduce Panetti's sentence -- the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has to first recommend clemency. On Monday, however, the board unanimously voted against delaying Panetti's execution for 180 days and recommending to Perry that his sentence be commuted.
According to media reports, Perry's office has not commented on whether the governor agreed with the board's decision, or on whether he was considering a 30-day stay.
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http://rt.com/usa/210835-texas-execution-mentally-ill/
Conservatives launching last-minute campaign to stop Texas from executing mentally-ill prisoner
December 03, 2014
A group of leading conservatives has called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to reverse the upcoming execution of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic man convicted of double murder whom the group called "one of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners on death row.”
Twenty-one conservative leaders, including former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, joined mental health and death penalty reform advocates to ask Perry to commute Panetti’s sentence to life in prison.
The group sent a letter to Perry, The Huffington Post reported, to request the reversal of Panetti’s execution, set for Wednesday at 6 p.m. CT.
“Each of us has been active at the national level of the conservative movement for many years, and no one could accuse us of being soft on crime,” they wrote. “Among conservatives there is much debate about the effectiveness and the morality of the death penalty. Some crimes are so terrible, and committed with such clear malice, that some believe that execution seems the only appropriate and proportional response. But Scott Panetti’s is no such case.”
Panetti confessed to the 1992 murder of his in-laws, which occurred while his wife and young daughter watched. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, among other mental illnesses, over 30 years ago and has been hospitalized numerous times, according to the Atlantic.
“The authority to take a man’s life is the most draconian penalty that we allow our government to exercise. As conservatives, we must be on guard that such an extraordinary government sanction not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought. It would be immoral for the government to take this man’s life. Should the Board recommend it, we respectfully urge you to reduce Mr. Panetti’s death sentence to life in prison,” - the letter says.
Panetti was allowed to act as his own attorney during his trial in 1995. He attempted to subpoena John F. Kennedy and the Pope, and “believed he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan and he was convinced that the devil was in his home,” the conservatives wrote.
Prosecutors have claimed Panetti is faking his illnesses. Panetti’s own lawyers previously requested Perry stay the execution for 30 days so that he could receive a new mental health examination, as he has not had one since 2007. The lawyers said they would have filed the stay request earlier but that they were only aware of a set execution date based on a newspaper article.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which has significant power over executions, recommended on Monday that Perry commute Panetti’s sentence. Perry has not commented on the Board’s vote or on the request for a 30-day stay.
“Rather than serving as a measured response to murder, the execution of Mr. Panetti would only serve to undermine the public’s faith in a fair and moral justice system,” the conservative leaders wrote.
An online petition calling on Perry to grant clemency to Panetti has been signed by nearly 100,000 people, including the inmate’s ex-wife and former presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Since 1982, Texas has killed more than 500 inmates through lethal injection.
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Over Easy: TX to Execute ‘Floridly Psychotic’ Scott Panetti Today at 6 PM
By Crane-Station, December 3, 2014
Barring a last-minute stay, Texas will execute Scott Panetti today at 6 PM. Scott Panetti is a severely mentally ill, “floridly psychotic” individual whose trial was a farce that took place before a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole was an option. A Texas trial court allowed Panetti to decline a plea and represent himself at trial where he donned a cartoonish purple cowboy costume and subpoenaed Jesus Christ, JFK and the Pope, among others. His severe mental illness pre-dates his crime by twenty years and included multiple hospitalizations.
Scott Panetti is not competent now and he never has been, but since prosecutors scheduled an execution date without telling the defense, his pleas for a meaningful competency evaluation have been denied.
Even conservative political leaders such as former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have called the upcoming execution “immoral” and said that our nation’s highest punishment should “not be used against a person who is mentally incapable of rational thought.”
Despite opposition to this execution from both sides of the philosophical aisle, Texas Governor Rick Perry cannot grant clemency because the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles unanimously green-lighted the execution, removing a clemency option from the Texas governor’s purview. The ultimate decision will come from the Supreme Court of the United States. Sometime today before 6 PM, the nation’s highest court will either grant review or not, but at this point it looks as if Texas will kill a man who believes that Satan is trying to prevent him from preaching the gospel to the condemned.
In light of the looming execution and prior to the case making its way to a Hail Mary pass before the United States Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas reviewed it, and although they voted to go forward with the execution, the consensus was not unanimous. One of the dissenters, Judge Price, issued a statement on November 26, explaining why he now believes the death penalty should be abolished.
Judge Price makes the important point that a person only gets one chance, and one chance only, in a writ of habeas corpus and that successive writs are prohibited. This is the procedural rule. If the first lawyer provides ineffective assistance by failing to raise a meritorious issue the first time around, the second lawyer is barred from raising the meritorious issue as well as the previous lawyer’s ineffectiveness, in a subsequent writ. This is a way to punish the defendant for a lawyer’s ineffectiveness which can and does lead to wrongful convictions. Judge Price notes procedural default laws and states:
Based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I now conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished because the execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty; the life without parole option adequately protects society at large in the same way as the death penalty punishment option; and the risk of executing an innocent person for a capital murder is unreasonably high, particularly in light of procedural-default laws and the prevalence of ineffective trial and initial habeas counsel. I would grant a stay of execution and file and set the application in order to grant applicant relief. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.
Moreover, Judge Price points out that society’s evolving standards of decency call for Scott Panetti’s life to be spared:
Having spent the last forty years as a judge for the State of Texas, of which the last eighteen years have been as a judge on this Court, I have given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the Court’s order denying the motion for stay of execution and dismissing the subsequent application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Scott Louis Panetti, applicant. I would grant applicant’s motion for a stay of execution and would hold that his severe mental illness renders him categorically ineligible for the death penalty under the Eight hand Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
My conclusion is not reached hastily. Rather, it is the result of my deliberative thought process from having presided over three death-penalty trials as a trial court judge and having decided countless issues related to capital murder and the death penalty as a judge on this Court. I have many reasons for reaching this conclusion, only a few of which I will discuss at this juncture, and will begin with the problems illustrated by the instant case. The Supreme Court has determined that the execution of a mentally retarded person or of an insane person would violate the Eighth Amendment. See Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002); Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). The Court’s general rationale is that evolving standards of decency weigh against the imposition of the death penalty on these offenders because the execution of such individuals would not measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 306, 318-20. It is inconceivable to me how the execution of a severely mentally ill person such as applicant would measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes purportedly served by the death penalty. And, yet, unless and until a federal court or the Supreme Court grants his application, applicant, who few dispute is severely mentally ill, will be executed, whereas a similarly situated mentally challenged person, such as one who is mentally retarded or one who is insane, will have his sentence commuted to life in prison. This artificial line divides life and death. I can imagine no rational reason for carving a line between the prohibition on the execution of a mentally retarded person or an insane person while permitting the execution of a severely mentally ill person. At a minimum,therefore, I would hold that the execution of a severely mentally ill person violates the Eighth
Amendment of the federal Constitution. But carving out another group that is ineligible for the death penalty is a bandaid solution for the real problem.
Evolving societal values indicate that the death penalty should be abolished in its entirety. Since Texas enacted life without parole as a punishment for capital murder, Texas district attorneys have significantly decreased their requests for the death penalty, and juries today often prefer that punishment to the death penalty. When I first joined it, this Court received a great number of death penalty appeals and writs, as compared
to the number of these cases that reach this Court now. I believe that this decline is because District Attorneys and juries now (1) have the life without parole option and (2) are less convinced of the absolute accuracy of the criminal justice system.
Defense counsel is hoping that the United States Supreme Court will issue a stay of execution and grant certiorari today on the evolving standards of decency issue. Because a procedural bar prevents somebody from raising the issue, the rule needs to be changed- but it is a ‘long shot’ at this point.
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Defense attorneys argue that the execution of Scott Panetti, slated for Wednesday, violates ban on cruel and unusual punishment
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Lawyers are appealing to the United States Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to stop the state of Texas from executing their client, Scott Panetti, who has been diagnosed with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia.
Defense lawyers argue that the execution of a mentally ill person, who is unable to fully grasp the sentence, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Fifty-six-year-old Panetti, scheduled to be killed by lethal injection on Wednesday at 6:00 PM, has for 30 years been diagnosed with severe mental illness. In the six years preceding the crime for which he was convicted, he was hospitalized more than a dozen times for psychosis and delusions, according to his lawyers, who are with the Texas Defender Service.
Panetti represented himself during his 1995 trial for capital murder, during which he donned a cowboy costume and attempted to call over 200 witnesses, including John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ.
A petition from Panetti's sister, which has so far garnered over 90,000 signatures, states: "The trial court should never have allowed Scott to represent himself. He was clearly extremely ill... He passed up a plea deal that would have saved his life. The court could have insisted that an attorney represented my brother, but it did not, and the outcome was his death sentence."
The appeal to the Supreme Court, issued Monday, follows a similar request from Panetti's lawyers to Texas Governor Rick Perry for a 30-day stay of execution after the State Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously rejected their request for a commutation of his sentence.
“Mr. Panetti is a very sick man who has had schizophrenia for decades," said Kathryn Kase, co-counsel for Panetti, and Executive Director of the Texas Defender Service. "Mr. Panetti's severe mental illness has caused concern among numerous judges who issued multiple powerful dissents last week and has galvanized extensive support for relief in his case from the mental health community."
According to Kase, "The widespread support for relief in this case includes not only the mental health community but also leading legal organizations, and others, and is supported by new information regarding sentencing practices, which clearly show a trend against using the death penalty when defendants have severe mental illness, as well as the universal opinion of mental health experts and polling data."
A survey released last week by Public Policy Polling finds that 58 percent of Americans oppose the death penalty for persons with mental illness, while only 28 percent are in favor.
The following video clip, provided by Texas Defender Service, provides background information on the case:
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Will Texas Execute Killer Who is Schizophrenic, Delusional?
By Dianne Depra, December 3, 2014
Scott Panetti shot and killed his in-laws Joe and Amanda Alvarado in 1992 in front of his wife and then-three-year-old daughter. Convicted in 1995, he is set to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday, but will Texas push through with it? So far, it appears likely, although his lawyers are asking the courts to stop the execution because Panetti is mentally ill.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978, Panetti has been in and out of hospitals over a dozen times to undergo treatment. During his own trial, he dressed up in a purple cowboy suit and attempted to call on over 200 witnesses including Jesus Christ and the pope. He also introduced the court to an alternate personality called "Sarge" to testify.
According to Panetti's lawyers, Kathryn Kase and Gregory Wiercioch, his mental condition has gravely deteriorated so he should be eligible to undergo a new round of tests to determine his competency, which will then determine whether or not his execution should be stayed.
State lawyers countered that records don't show any significant changes in Panetti since he was last formally examined seven years ago. Not to mention that no court has ever found him insane or incompetent during his trial and the subsequent appeals his camp filed.
"Panetti's assertion of severe mental illness are in doubt when compared to the multiple past findings on his sanity, competency to stand trial and competency to be executed, as well as evidence submitted by the state. Panetti's case is an inappropriate one to create a new rule of law," said Ellen Stewart-Klein, assistant Texas attorney general.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that states can't execute killers who have been established to be insane such that they can't comprehend why they are being put to death. Justices expanded the provision in 2002 to prohibit the execution of all mentally impaired. In 2007, ruling on Panetti's appeal, the court said the mentally ill may be executed if they exhibit rational and factual understanding of why they are being punished.
Chances of stopping his execution are growing slim for Panetti as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles have already voted not to recommend changing his death sentence to life imprisonment, rejecting as well a request to delay his execution. His biggest hope now lies in Governor Rick Perry, who can delay his execution for up to 30 days to allow for a mental evaluation. Perry, however, is not allowed by the law to lift a death sentence.
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http://sputniknews.com/us/20141203/1015434560.html
Execution of Mentally Ill Killer Scott Panetti Scheduled in Texas
December 3, 2014
US Navy veteran Scott Panetti, who suffers from several mental illnesses, including chronic schizophrenia, hallucinations and homicidal ideation toward his family, is scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday.
MOSCOW, December 3 (Sputnik) - Mentally ill convicted murderer Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Wednesday, according to the state's Department of Criminal Justice schedule of executions.
It is a violation of death penalty safeguards to impose capital punishment on individuals suffering from psycho-social disabilities, a UN human rights expert said the day before a mentally ill prisoner is set to be executed in Texas.
A US Navy veteran, Pannetti was diagnosed - and repeatedly hospitalized - with several mental illnesses, including chronic schizophrenia, hallucinations and homicidal ideation toward his family, prior to shooting dead his parents-in-law in 1992.
On November 25, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 5 to 4 against issuing a stay of execution. Despite his mental health condition, Pannetti was denied clemency on Monday.
The execution is planned to take place at 6 p.m. local time (1 a.m. GMT). If the death sentence is carried out, Panetti will be the 11th person to be institutionally killed in Texas this year, Deutsche Welle reported.
At his 1995 trial, Panetti chose to represent himself, making the case that his alternate personality, "Sarge," was responsible for the murders. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
Subsequently Panetti has appealed the verdict on the basis of his mental health condition. The death sentence, however, has been upheld. According to media reports, no court has deemed him mentally ill nor ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
The Panetti case has attracted broad-based criticism, with human rights experts pointing to a 1986 Supreme Court ruling (Ford v. Wainwright) that prevents states from executing murderers whose insanity makes them incapable of understanding why they are being put to death. In 2002, the Supreme Court prohibited the execution of the mentally impaired, deciding that it violated the Eight Amendment of the US Constitution prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments.
Numerous human rights organizations have called on the US federal government and the state of Texas to halt the execution, with Amnesty International referring to the decision to put Panetti to death as "shameful" and United Nation's Special Rapporteurs stating that the measure runs counter to the international prohibition of torture and other inhuman punishment.
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http://news.sky.com/story/1384484/un-asks-texas-to-halt-inmates-execution
UN Asks Texas To Halt Inmate's Execution
Scott Panetti, who shot dead his in-laws in 1992, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 but never ruled incompetent in court.
By Sky News US Team, December 2, 2014
UN human rights investigators have called on the state of Texas and the US government to halt the execution of an inmate with a history of mental illness.
Scott Panetti, 56, is scheduled for lethal injection on Wednesday for the 1992 shooting deaths of his in-laws at their Fredericksburg home.
The UN experts contend that Panetti had "proven psychosocial disabilities" and killing him would breach international norms on the death penalty.
"Given the irreversible nature of the death penalty, we urgently appeal to the Government of the United States and the state of Texas to find a way to stop the scheduled execution ... ", Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, and UN torture investigator Juan Mendez said in a statement.
Panetti was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1978 and had been in hospital more than a dozen times for treatment.
Mr Heyns said carrying out the death penalty of someone with mental illness may amount to an "arbitrary execution".
On Monday, Panetti's lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court to halt the execution and asked the justices to determine whether mentally ill people should be exempt from the death penalty.
There was "no doubt" Panetti was severely mentally ill "before, during and after the crime for which he has been sentenced to death", his attorneys said.
Panetti was 34 when he forced his way into the home of Joe and Amanda Alvarado, where his estranged wife was staying with their three-year-old daughter.
Authorities said Panetti assaulted his wife and when confronted by his in-laws, shot and killed them with a rifle. He then kidnapped his wife and daughter, taking them to cabin.
He released them and surrendered later that same day. He told police his alter ego "Sarge" killed his wife's parents.
No court has ruled Panetti was or is incompetent or insane.
At his trial, he "wore the garish costume of a dime-store cowboy as he represented himself" and "engaged in bizarre, incoherent and frightening behaviour", his attorneys said.
In 2002, Supreme Court justices prohibited the execution of people who are mentally impaired, ruling that it violated the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Capital punishment for mentally ill prisoners has been permitted, however, as long as the inmate has a factual and rational understanding of why he is being put to death.
An assistant Texas attorney general told the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that although Panetti's medical records contain indications of mental illness, they "strongly indicate rational awareness of his impending execution and the reason for it".
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Attorneys want intervention in Texas execution
Updated: Wednesday, December 3, 2014
TEXAS (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Attorneys for a Texas death row inmate set to be executed Wednesday night want an intervention.
56-year-old Scott Panetti was convicted for fatally shooting his in-laws in 1992.
His lawyers say he is delusional and they want another competency hearing.
They want the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if executing the mentally ill is unconstitutionally cruel punishment.
The high court has ruled in the past that inmates can be executed if they understand why they're being put to death.
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