Stefanie Faucher
This e-mail contains a statement from attorneys of Scott Panetti
Link to attorney's statement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1LFfr8Iqz_7MVlVSWdPM29UaVU/view?usp=sharing
This e-mail contains Opinions & Editorials from:
· Baptist Standard (EDITORIAL)- Texas should not put mentally ill man to death
· Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (Column)- Execution of mentally ill man next month must be stopped
· Houston Chronicle (Opinion)- Parnham: Courts sentenced man to death without fairly considering his mental illness
· Daily Utah Chronicle (Opinion [Mention])- DEATH PENALTY PROCESS NEEDS REFORM IN TIMELINE
This e-mail contains news from:
· Associated Press- Attorneys ask judge 2nd time to delay scheduled execution for inmate described as delusional
· Texas Public Radio- Texas Matters: How Crazy is Too Crazy For Execution
· WTAQ-FM- Attorneys seek delay in Wisconsin native's execution in Texas
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Editorial: Texas should not put mentally ill man to death
By MARV KNOX / EDITOR, November 14, 2014
A bunch of out-of-staters are trying to tell Texas what to do.
We should listen to them.
The situation involves the upcoming execution of Scott Panetti, a 56-year-old mentally ill man convicted of murdering the parents of his second wife in 1992.
A broad range of Christian leaders appealed on Panetti’s behalf to Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. In a Nov. 12 letter, they expressed “grave concern” about the execution, to be conducted by lethal injection Dec. 3.
“The gospel message compels us to speak for those without a voice and to care for the most vulnerable,” their letter says, according to a report by Baptist News Global. “For this reason, it is imperative that we treat those with mental illness in a fair and humane manner.”
The letter claims Panetti’s execution “would be a cruel injustice that would serve no constructive purpose whatsoever.”
Panetti’s history of mental illness stretches across three decades. At his trial, he dressed in a cowboy suit and represented himself. He tried to subpoena Jesus, the pope and John F. Kennedy.
Overturned once
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his death sentence because justices believed he did not understand why he was to be executed, the BNG report noted. He claimed he was being executed for preaching to other death-row inmates.
A lower court agreed with prosecutors, who said Panetti exaggerated his mental illness, and handed down another death sentence. Appeals ensued, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case again.
Out-of-state leaders who have asked the governor and the pardon board to intervene include Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Sacramento, Calif.; Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice in Washington; Shane Claiborne, a founder of the progressive The Simple Way in Philadelphia; Lynn Hybels of Willow Creek Church in the Chicago area; David Gushee, an ethicist at Mercer University in Atlanta and Macon, Ga.; and Fisher Humphreys, a retired professor at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.
Texas signers include Charlie Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Texas Children in Fort Worth; Alan Bean, head of Friends of Justice in Arlington; Heather Mustain, associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas; and Stephanie True, associate pastor of University Baptist Church in Austin.
Decency demands it
Gov. Perry and the pardon board should heed the ministers’ counsel—whether it comes from outside or inside the state.
Decency demands it.
The execution of a mentally ill person—who otherwise would serve a life sentence in prison—does not protect society. It does not even provide reasonable punishment, because the condemned person does not understand the reason for his execution.
The faith leaders provided a clear case for commuting Panetti’s sentence: “When we inflict the harshest punishment on the severely mentally ill, whose culpability is greatly diminished by their debilitating conditions, we fail to respect their innate dignity as human beings. We therefore respectfully encourage you to consider granting Scott Panetti’s clemency petition and commuting his death sentence to life in prison.”
We have been discussing capital punishment for years. Texas is known around the world for its seeming bloodlust for lawbreakers. We lead the nation in executions. And if we put a mentally ill inmate to death, we further damage our tarnished reputation.
Texas, the state that takes pride in its churches and its piety, can do better than this.
Even outsiders are telling us so.
We should listen to them.
To read the Baptist News Global report on this case, click here.
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http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/11/15/6289734/execution-of-mentally-ill-man.html
Execution of mentally ill man next month must be stopped
By Bob Ray Sanders, Nov. 15, 2014
In 1992, Scott Louis Panetti went to the home of his in-laws in Fredericksburg, where his wife was staying with their 3-year-old daughter.
Armed with a .30-06 rifle, he forced his way into the house and assaulted his wife, according to Death Row records at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“Confronted by his in-laws, Panetti shot the both of them and then kidnapped his wife and daughter, taking them to [a] cabin where he held them for some time at gunpoint before releasing them,” the records state. “Arrested the same day, Panetti told police that it was his alter ego, ‘Sarge,’ who did the killing.”
That last sentence is significant because it speaks to Panetti’s long and continuing battle with mental illness.
For 14 years before the murder, Panetti had been hospitalized at least 15 times at various institutions, including Brooke Army Medical Center, Kerrville State Hospital, Waco Veterans Hospital and the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Tomah, Wis.
Doctors who recorded his behavior at those hospitals wrote: “Psychotic and not oriented to time, place or person on admission”; “Incoherent,” “paranoid” and “grandiose”; “Threatened suicide”; “Failing to comply with his medication regimen. Threatening towards his wife and kids”; “patient has schizoid quality about him; appears to be on the edge of a psychotic break. Feels he is controlled by an unseen power.”; “Wife reports that he believed the devil was in the furniture and buried furniture in the back yard and then nailed the curtains shut.”
In 1986, the Social Security Administration found him to be disabled and deserving of benefits due to his schizophrenia.
Despite that kind of mental history, he was allowed to represent himself at his capital murder trial in 1995, according to his current lawyers, who noted:
“Wearing a cowboy costume with a purple bandana and attempting to call over 200 people to the witness stand, including the Pope, John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ and his own alter ego, Mr. Panetti was found guilty and sentenced to death.”
Panetti was scheduled to be put to death in 2004, but a federal judge stayed that execution. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, determined him to be competent for execution using a standard that the Supreme Court ultimately rejected.
Still, the state of Texas wouldn’t give up on trying to kill this man. Last year, the Fifth Circuit again found Panetti competent to be executed, and on Oct. 16 a state district judge signed a warrant setting the execution date for Dec. 3, a fact Panetti’s attorneys didn’t learn about until two weeks later — when they read it in the newspaper.
Since then there has been an all-out effort to stop this travesty, by at least modifying the execution date and allowing his attorneys the opportunity to litigate Panetti’s competency for execution. That’s what his lawyers have asked for in an emergency motion for a hearing.
In addition, last week the attorneys and dozens of organizations and individuals from across the country have called on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry to stop this execution and grant clemency for the obviously mentally ill individual.
“The case of Scott Louis Panetti is a judicial disaster that has attracted national and international outrage — and for good reason,” the clemency petition states. “Evidence of his incompetency runs like a fissure through every proceeding in this case — from arraignment to execution … The execution of Scott Panetti would cross a moral line.”
Indeed it would.
Texas already has executed 10 people this year and, aside from Panetti, another 10 are scheduled to die during the next six months.
Somehow we must stop this one. Let the governor know he must not allow this immoral act to go forward.
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.
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Parnham: Courts sentenced man to death without fairly considering his mental illness
By George Parnham, November 14, 2014
There is something new to worry about in the already troubling case of Scott Panetti. Scheduled for execution on Dec. 3, Panetti is a man with schizophrenia who suffers from a fixed delusion that Satan is trying to kill him through the state of Texas to stop him from preaching the gospel to inmates.
In recent weeks, Texas has added even more impropriety to this already deeply disturbing case in which a severely mentally ill man represented himself at trial and ended up on death row.
On Oct. 30, attorneys for Scott Panetti found out through media that Texas had set an execution date of Dec. 3 for their client. The office of the Hill Country-area 216th Judicial District Attorney Bruce Curry did not notify them on Oct. 16, when the date was set, as is the pattern and practice of capital law in Texas.
Those lost 14 days could mean the difference between life and death for Panetti.
In Texas, once an execution date is set, the defense has a limited amount of time to file remaining legal claims, to prepare to make a clemency request and to ask for additional materials. And this is a case with enormously complex issues at stake.
Panetti had an extensive history of mental illness prior to the crime for which he went on trial in Kerrville in 1995. Having already been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and hospitalized over a dozen times, Panetti was a very sick man.
Convinced he was being targeted by the devil, Panetti exhibited bizarre behavior, washing his walls, burying his furniture and shaving his head. Unmedicated and in the grip of a psychotic delusion, he took the lives of his mother-in-law and father-in-law, then turned himself over to the police.
What happened next is infamous and indecent. The court could have demanded that outside counsel represent Panetti. Instead, it permitted Panetti, still in the throes of his mental illness, to represent himself in court. His life was on the line. Dressed in a costume as a Western cowboy actor and wearing a purple bandana, Panetti called hundreds of people, living and dead, as witnesses. He spoke to himself on the stand, addressing the alter ego, "Sarge," an auditory hallucination who he believed had instructed him to commit the crime.
Panetti's family watched on in horror, urging him to submit his extensive medical records as evidence. The judge ultimately declined to accept the records because Panetti had drawn and written all over them.
Declining to accept a plea deal that would have taken capital punishment off the table, Panetti was ultimately sentenced to death.
Panetti's case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he prevailed in 2007. The court urged that lower courts carefully consider the case and their interpretation of mental insanity, particularly whether Panetti is capable of understanding the reasons for the punishment he faces. But in 2013, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals once again cleared Panetti for execution.
There is no cure for schizophrenia. Panetti remains severely mentally ill.
Many things about Panetti's case are troubling and uncertain. Now, in failing to notify Panetti's attorneys about the day his execution was set, Texas has once again pushed forward the criminal justice process in this troubling case at the expense of justice.
What happens next is up to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gov. Rick Perry and the courts. Panetti's attorneys have submitted a petition for clemency supported by several of the nation's and Texas' leading mental health organizations, more than 50 evangelical Christians and dozens of former prosecutors.
If the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends a commutation to life in prison, Perry can change the sentence. It is also possible that a judge will stay the execution.
Otherwise, a man with schizophrenia, who represented himself in court, will be put to death in the names of the people of Texas.
Parnham is an attorney in Houston who has represented many defendants with severe mental illness. He has served on the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Mental Health Committee and was the 2006 Winner, Outstanding Contribution to Public Psychology Award, presented by the Texas Psychological Association.
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http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/2014/11/16/death-penalty-process-needs-reform-in-timeline/
DEATH PENALTY PROCESS NEEDS REFORM IN TIMELINE
BY EMMA TANNER, NOVEMBER 16, 2014
Despite a series of recently botched executions, it seems as though the issues behind our flawed capital punishment system have not been made national priorities. Very few states see a need to improve their tradition-based death penalty system even with emerging problems with implementation. However, I believe the current system warrants reexamination and is pressing for serious revision. After all, it is literally a matter of life and death.
Serving justice is the number one reason many people favor the death penalty in America. The “eye for an eye” mentality has widespread appeal, especially with murder victims’ families and friends. But such a traditional mindset has, to an extent, blocked serious revision of our death penalty system even as new scientific findings have emerged that strongly suggest many criminals convicted of capital crimes are incapable of controlling their actions and may not deserve punishment by death. Especially since the early 1980s, the study of mental illness as it pertains to capital offenders has been an evolving field that the American legal system has yet to fully adopt and adapt to. Even though it is now illegal to execute a severely mentally ill criminal under the Eighth Amendment, people are reluctant to accept a criminal as not entirely responsible for his actions, even when based on evidence of uncontrollable compulsions or a legitimate lack of understanding of the consequences behind his decisions, which is often due to chemical imbalances within the brain or other biological factors.
Scott Panetti of Texas will be executed Dec. 3 of this year. Panetti, who shot and killed his in-laws in 1992, is a 56-year-old diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who strongly believes the state of Texas is “in league with the forces of evil” and wants to kill him “to prevent him from preaching the Gospel,” according to a trial report by the international online newspaper, The Guardian U.S. Panetti was declared fit to be executed by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks under the assumption that he was faking some of his symptoms during trial and that he is capable enough of understanding the retribution for his criminal actions. Despite Panetti’s diagnosis of paranoid delusions and a petition by his former wife which stated that Panetti never should have been tried for the crimes as a competent adult, the death penalty was imposed.
Of course, execution is an irreversible punishment that cannot be taken lightly. Simple judiciary discretion is often not enough to justify the decision to allow someone to be tried as a capital offender. More intense scientific investigation to confidently understand mental capacities as they pertain to criminal behavior should be pursued to ensure that people are not unfairly sentenced to death.
However, mental illness is not the only factor not being given the emphasis it deserves in mitigating capital punishment. DNA profiling, which also surfaced in the 1980s, has led to 20 individuals on death row being proven innocent, according to The Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organization that works to raise national awareness for criminal injustice within the United States.
While criminals are often unfairly affected by our imperfect criminal justice system, it also does not fully meet its own goals in regards to society. Capital punishment is, in large part, supposed to act as a deterrent to crime. The hope is that by sentencing murderers to death, other potential capital offenders will develop a fear for the consequences of murderous actions that will dissuade them from committing such crimes. However, according to an op-ed by Daniel LaChance in The New York Times in September 2014, due to recent government intervention, the average 16-year time lapse between a conviction and execution creates a mental separation between murderous acts and their consequences that severely undermines the deterring effect.
Not only does this time lapse diminish the intended deterrent effect, it also drains the feeling for victims’ family members that justice has been served. LaChance writes that “a sense of moral solidarity is hard to generate when the devil appears in the execution chamber 20 years later, a middle-aged or elderly man whose crimes have long faded from popular memory.” This inefficiency is not something victims’ families should have to tolerate. Attempts to generate quicker, more effective methods of execution should be made to create a sense of real closure and justice for families. To do this, LaChance suggests that state investments be made to hire more lawyers and legal aides who will then push capital punishment cases through the system at a quicker rate.
States need to get their acts together and progress toward better resolutions. While I do support the death penalty, despite its flaws, my hope is that it will take into account the current scientific advancements and strategic set-backs that seem to be on the political back-burner.
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Attorneys ask judge 2nd time to delay scheduled execution for inmate described as delusional
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, November 14, 2014
HOUSTON — Attorneys for a Texas death row inmate they describe as severely delusional asked a state judge Friday for a second time to put off the prisoner's execution set for early next month.
State District Judge N. Keith Williams in Gillespie County last week refused an emergency request from lawyers for convicted killer Scott Panetti that he reset or withdraw Panetti's Dec. 3 execution date. Williams set the date last month.
Panetti, 56, faces lethal injection for the fatal shootings of his in-laws 22 years ago at their home in Fredericksburg.
In a motion to Williams' court Friday, Panetti's lawyers contended the inmate's long-diagnosed mental illness appears to have worsened, that they need additional time to investigate whether he is incompetent for execution and that putting the Hayward, Wisconsin, native to death could violate his constitutional rights.
"Since 2007, when Mr. Panetti was last evaluated for competency to be executed, there has been a substantial change in circumstances that raise a significant question of Mr. Panetti's present competency for execution," lawyers Gregory Wiercioch and Kathryn Kase wrote.
Last month, in at least his third trip to the high court, justices refused to review an appeal from Panetti.
Besides the latest state court motion, Panetti's legal team on Wednesday asked Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Panetti's sentence to life in prison, contending the case has been "a judicial disaster" and his execution "would cross a moral line."
State attorneys have argued Panetti exaggerates some of his mental illness symptoms trying to avoid execution. The parole board a decade ago rejected a similar commutation request.
Panetti was convicted of fatally shooting his in-laws, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in front of his estranged wife and young children. His wife was living with her parents and a week before the 1992 shootings she obtained a court order to keep Panetti away.
His 1995 trial attracted notoriety when he chose to be his own lawyer, insisting only an insane person could prove insanity, then wore a cowboy outfit to court and sought to subpoena dozens of witnesses, including Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy. He ignored a standby attorney ordered by his trial judge to be available to provide assistance.
A scheduled 2004 execution of Panetti was halted by a federal judge a day before it was to be carried out. A similar reprieve from the Supreme Court stopped his scheduled execution in 2007.
Kase, in an interview, said present standards require an inmate to have a rational and factual understanding of why he's being executed.
"In Mr. Panetti's case, his understanding is the state wants to prevent him from preaching the Gospel on death row and saving their souls, and clearly that's not factual or rational," she said.
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http://tpr.org/post/texas-matters-how-crazy-too-crazy-execution
Texas Matters: How Crazy is Too Crazy For Execution
By DAVID MARTIN DAVIES
Scott Panetti thinks Satan will kill him on December the third and he’s partly right. He’s scheduled to be executed that day by the state of Texas.
Panetti thinks the devil is behind all of his problems. That’s why he once tried to bury his furniture. And that’s why in 1992 he saved his head and murdered the parents of his estranged wife. And that’s why he represented himself at trial dressed as a cowboy and tried to call Jesus as a witness.
Panetti has a long history mental illness and was first diagnosed in 1978 at Brook Army Medical Center as suffering from schizophrenia.
There is no doubt that Panetti committed the double murder and there’s no doubt that he is mentally ill. The question is – is he too crazy to be executed. The state of Texas says no but others say yes. This week dozens of organizations and individuals called on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Rick Perry to stop the execution. But these calls for clemency appear to have no affect.
And on Friday attorneys for Scott Panetti filed a new Motion in the 216th District Court in Kerrville which seeks to stay or modify the execution date in order to assess Panetti's competency to be executed.
Kathryn Kase of Texas Defender Service is Panetti’s attorney.
TIMELINE of Panetti's Mental Illness
The clemency petition
Letter to Gov. Rick Perry
letter from leading national and Texas mental health organizations and experts
And more can be accessed here: www.texasdefender.org/scott-panetti
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Attorneys seek delay in Wisconsin native's execution in Texas
November 14, 2014
HAYWARD, WI (WTAQ) - Lawyers for a Wisconsin native have again asked a judge in Texas to delay the man's execution that's set for December 3rd.
56-year-old Scott Panetti from Hayward is on death row for killing his ex-wife's parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, at their home in Fredericksburg Texas in 1992.
A district state judge in Texas rejected an emergency request last week to delay the execution. In that motion, Panetti's lawyers said they needed extra time to prove the man's mental competency.
They said they were never informed of the execution date until 2 weeks after it was set, and they had to read about it in the Houston Chronicle.
Friday, the defense filed a brief which said Panetti's long-standing mental illness has gotten worse -- and putting him to death now could violate his constitutional rights.
Panetti was an all-star football player at Poynette High School, and was hospitalized 15 times for schizophrenia before the killings.
The case has bounced back and forth between the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts.
Panetti has said his execution is being arranged by Satan because he preached the gospel to his fellow prisoners.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
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