A federal appeals court has given Scott Panetti a reprieve from execution on Dec. 3, 2014. Photo: The Associated Press/Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Files WASHINGTON – One day in 1992, Scott Panetti dressed up in combat fatigues and, assuming the character of one of his hallucinations, Sgt. Ironhorse, went to his in-laws’ home and shot them dead. He claimed they were the devil incarnate and he was doing God’s work.
During the previous 11 years, Panetti had displayed all the hallmarks of a severely mentally ill person. He believed Satan had invaded his home and once buried his furniture in his backyard because he thought the devil was in the furniture.
He had been hospitalized 12 times for psychosis and delusional behaviour and was diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia, brain dysfunction, homicidal tendencies and depression. The U.S. government had ruled he was entitled to social security benefits because he was disabled by mental illness.
When he killed his father-in-law and mother-in-law he had recently left hospital and had stopped taking his antipsychotic medication.
Nevertheless, he was deemed competent enough to stand trial and was allowed to represent himself. Dressed as a cowboy with a purple bandana, he called more than 200 witnesses including the pope, John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ. He even called his alter ego Sgt. Ironhorse to recount the crime. At one point, he extended his arm towards the jury as if it were a rifle and said, “boom, boom, blood, blood.”
On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted seven to zero to deny commutation of the death sentence. Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of Panetti’s severe mental illness, the prosecution argued he was faking it.
By commuting the sentence, the court “would undermine the sentences of a majority of the nation’s death row inmates,” the prosecution said, raising the possibility, perhaps inadvertently, that the U.S. regularly executed mentally ill people.
Panetti, 56, was scheduled to be killed by lethal injection on Wednesday at 6 p.m. CST.
But on Wednesday morning, a Texas appeals court stayed the execution until Panetti’s lawyers had a final opportunity to plea for leniency. His lawyers claim the death sentence violates the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
“Mr. Panetti’s execution would cross a moral line and serve no retributive or deterrent value,” Panetti’s lawyer Kathryn Kase said in a statement. “There is still time to stop this unconscionable execution of a severely mentally ill man who would die without comprehending what his death means.”
This is the second time Panetti has won a stay of execution. Texas first tried to execute him in 2004, but was thwarted when a federal court ruled he was mentally ill and therefore not competent.
Not to be deterred, the state persuaded a circuit court judge in 2013 to reverse that decision. Panetti’s execution was back on.
For many people and groups both for and against capital punishment, the case reflects the treatment of the mentally ill in the United States.
Groups and individuals from almost every spectrum of U.S. society — conservatives, liberals, Evangelicals, legal and medical groups — have pleaded with Texas to stop the execution.
Former Texas governor Mark White called Panetti’s trial “a sham.” He added, “Executing Panetti would say far more about us than it would about the man we are attempting to kill.”
Abby Johnson, an anti-abortion activist, opposed the execution in an op-ed piece in the Dallas Morning News. “A culture of life recognizes the value of those who are vulnerable and prioritizes safeguarding them,” she wrote.
The United Nations Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez said in a statement, “There is no doubt that it is inherently cruel and unworthy of civilized societies to execute persons with mental disabilities.”
Many worried that Panetti’s execution would set the stage for the execution of the mentally handicapped.
U.S. courts have ruled that people who are so insane they don’t know the difference between right and wrong and therefore cannot understand either the meaning of their crime or their punishment cannot be executed. The Supreme Court has outlawed the execution of the mentally handicapped.
Yet the U.S. in fact still permits the execution of the mentally ill, according to Mental Health America. It says that five to 10 people on death row suffer from severe mental illness.
“Our current system of criminal justice inadequately addresses the complexity of cases involving criminal defendants with mental health conditions,” the MHA said in a 2009 report.
Panetti’s execution by lethal injection would be Texas’s 519th since 1982. Since capital punishment was legalized in 1976, the U.S. has executed 1,389 people.
wmarsden@postmedia.com
No comments:
Post a Comment