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Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/28/2007 11:01:43 AM

cyberdude611

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A victory for those against capital punishment....

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WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer, saying lower courts should have considered psychiatric evidence about his mental illness.

The court ruled 5-4 in the case of Scott Louis Panetti, who shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his wife and young daughter.
Lawyers for the convicted murderer say that he suffers from a severe documented illness that is the source of gross delusions.

"This argument, we hold, should have been considered" when Panetti was scheduled for execution, said Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion.

Kennedy said Panetti should have been given the opportunity to submit expert psychiatric evidence in state court because "it is uncontested" that he made a substantial showing of incompetency. Siding with Kennedy in the majority were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that Panetti had petitioned the federal courts twice in his case and the law allows only one petition.

"The court bends over backwards to allow Panetti" to bring his current claim, despite no evidence that his condition has worsened, or even changed, since 1995, Thomas wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.

Thomas called the majority opinion "a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard" for the lower court to work out.
In the Panetti decision, the justices "made clear they are not talking about the broad sweep of mental illness, as some other organizations have urged," said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment.

One of Panetti's lawyers, Keith S. Hampton of Austin, Texas, said that "what this decision means is that you can bring in experts to try to determine a person's rationality."

Executing people like Panetti "serves no purpose and offends our sense of decency and common humanity," said Gregory W. Wiercioch, a staff attorney with Texas Defender Service who argued the case before the Supreme Court in April.

Texas had asked the court to reject Panetti's appeal on procedural grounds. Attorneys for the state also argued that the court should set a tougher standard for mental illness exceptions to capital punishment.

A former ranch hand and native of Hayward, Wis., Panetti had a history of mental problems including schizophrenia, recording 14 hospital stays over 11 years before his conviction. The killings took place in September 1992.

Four courts have said he was competent when he fired his trial lawyers. A jury and two courts rejected his defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Panetti personally argued that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense, dressing in cowboy clothing and submitting an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.

Then-Justice Lewis Powell said 20 years ago that a person may not be put to death if he cannot perceive "the connection between his crime and his punishment."

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars "the execution of a person who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing," they said in court papers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_mentally_ill

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/28/2007 11:38:58 AM

zerosignal

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The article over-represents the significance of the holding as it applies to this particular defendant's case. Even if an insane defendant can't be executed, nothing stops the state from pumping them full of enough antipsychotics to allow them a brief window of lucidity, which is all that's needed under the current standard. Consequently, even if Panetti gets to make his showing in the Texas trial courts that he is insane now, all it will do is postpone the inevitable. Criminal defendants found incompetent to stand trial for reason of insanity are treated the exact same way.

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/28/2007 1:08:37 PM

Lordandmaster

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Exactly right, but you can understand why there's an urge to read more significance into every Supreme Court ruling than there really is. Now that the 5-4 alignment has become very clear, people are more than curious to know just how far the 5 (or 4 + Kennedy, to be exact) can drag the country to the Right.

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/28/2007 10:39:14 PM

Termyn8or

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This is where most of y'all and I differ. In the OP evidence was presented that he should not be executed, but I take that evidence to prove that he should.

In other words, with the evidence provided, you say the person should be spared, but I say for PRECISELY the same reasons, he should be executed.

In my view, some sort of brainwashing has occurred to make people want to foist those problem people on the world. If it does not stop, we are going to get to the point where a mere ten percent of the population will support these defectives, at a very high cost each by the way. It has gotten to the point now where barely 50% of the people in this country are paying taxes. How much farther down the sewer do you need to go until you don't like it anymore ?

Is it going to take the collapse of the monetary system, forcing you back into the inner city to see reality or what ? You have alot of dollars and live way out there where these problems rarely affect you ? Wake up, if you keep this shit up, it is coming to you.

If you are a danger to society, you go.

Also note that the Supreme court also ruled that the state of Texas has the right to execute an innocent Man, and they did. How many guesses you want about who was governor at the time ?

The sanctity of life is a lie, they use that to keep you occupied. All the bullshit on the news, they use that to keep you occupied.

In Termyland people are required to know right from wrong.

One guy used the excuse that he was sick for ripping me off, that it was his crack addiction. I have not seen him since that day, and no I did not kill him. But he has missed out on my crowd since then. I can't let him back in, I can't trust him. If he ever forces the issue, he will experience a great deal of pain. I will not be around people I cannot trust, whether by insanity or dishonesty. That is the last word.

If the whole world ran like my place, it would be a much better place. Youse 'don't kill' people just don't realize the ramifications. You do not think into the future.

Actually banishment would always be offered to any who expressed a desire not to die, except if they killed, or actually maybe not. Do we have the right to foist these murderers and rapists upon society ? I think not.

Being crazy is OK, even stealing crazy things might pass, but in a world that is run right, any member of society who is crazy enough to rape or kill needs to be executed. And robbing a bank is different than stealing a shitload of, say, barbiedolls. You can be crazy, but if you are dangerous, you are whacked.

And televise it.

This all sounds horrendous to many with seemingly normal sensibilities, and it is. But 'we' have children.

Let me put it this way, if I had a six year old daughter, we had a nice backyard but during the day she can play out front, more room to ride her bike. One day she gets lost, she has only been going down the street but today she makes a mistake and goes up the street. She is lost.

I would like a society in which, instead of worrying about her well being, someone up in the other neighborhood notices her and asks what's wrong. She knows our phone number, and no matter how good things are, maybe still won't go in the house. Kid gets on the phone with me and I see what happened, she took a wrong turn. OK.

"Stay right there". See I want to go down there and thank the people for helping my kid. They were under no obligation to do it, they just did.

But today, don't count on it, why ?

I'll give you three guesses.

T

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/29/2007 12:58:45 AM

seeksfemslave

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As I see it the problem with the "mental illness" defense is that the prosecution could frequently bring in "experts" to show that the accused is not mentally ill. Once that happens the Judge should refuse to admit such "evidence", from either side, and then the court proceedings could continue considering the known "facts" surrounding the incident.

Until mental health "experts" can show that they can make predictions about an individual they are a busted flush IMO.
You only have to listen to psychiatrists discusing say criminal behaviour to see how threadbare is their position. No more insight than the intelligent laymen NO?

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/29/2007 1:07:39 AM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave

You only have to listen to psychiatrists discusing say criminal behaviour to see how threadbare is their position. No more insight than the intelligent laymen NO?

Criminal behaviour isn't a mental illness, it is often down to arbitary laws so one would expect psychiatrists to be perplexed as the next person as to how to stop it, apart from revision of the criminal code.

As for psychiatrists, I find their profession as questionable as a voodoo shamen.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 6/29/2007 1:08:26 AM >

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RE: Supreme Court blocks execution of mentally ill man - 6/29/2007 4:04:56 AM

Vendaval

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cyberdude611

Thomas called the majority opinion "a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard" for the lower court to work out.

Anyone else catch the irony in this statement?

A former ranch hand and native of Hayward, Wis., Panetti had a history of mental problems including schizophrenia, recording 14 hospital stays over 11 years before his conviction. The killings took place in September 1992.

He may alternate between periods of rationality and insanity.

Four courts have said he was competent when he fired his trial lawyers. A jury and two courts rejected his defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Panetti personally argued that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense, dressing in cowboy clothing and submitting an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.

Was he formerly employed as a televangelist or a used-car salesman?

Then-Justice Lewis Powell said 20 years ago that a person may not be put to death if he cannot perceive "the connection between his crime and his punishment."

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars "the execution of a person who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing," they said in court papers.

Who can say with any certainty what actually goes on in this man's mind?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_mentally_ill

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