News Coverage of Panetti Cert Grant

News Coverage of Panetti Cert Grant

Let's start with the New York Times article, "Justices to Consider Impact of Mental Illness on Death Penalty."

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to use the case of a schizophrenic death row inmate in Texas to set the standard for determining when a mental illness is so severe that execution would be constitutionally impermissible.

The question is not a new one for the court or for the criminal justice system, but it has come to the fore recently as a growing number of legal and mental health organizations have joined a call for a moratorium on executing those whose rational judgment has been significantly impaired, including their ability to appreciate why they have been sentenced to death.

The American Psychiatric Association has expressed specific concern about the competency standard used by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which upheld the death sentence for the Texas inmate, Scott L. Panetti, in rejecting his petition for a writ of habeas corpus last May.

Mr. Panetti, convicted in 1992 of fatally shooting his in-laws in the presence of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old child, is a 48-year-old Navy veteran who was hospitalized 14 times for schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders in the decade before the crime. A jury nonetheless found him competent to stand trial, and the judge permitted him to represent himself.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment barred the execution of the mentally ill. But the justices who decided that case, Ford v. Wainwright, did not settle on a definition of mental illness for the purpose of determining competency for execution.

Most lower courts have adopted, as controlling, a separate opinion by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who said that the “retributive goal of the criminal law” was satisfied as long as defendants were aware of “the punishment they are about to suffer” and “why they are to suffer it.”

The Fifth Circuit, which supervises the courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, has boiled this down to what it calls an “awareness” test. In Mr. Panetti’s case, Panetti v. Quarterman, No. 06-6407, the appeals court found the test was satisfied because Mr. Panetti indicated that he understood the state’s intention to execute him for killing his wife’s parents. The fact that he also held the delusional belief that his execution was part of a conspiracy by which the state was trying to prevent him from preaching the Gospel was beside the point, the appeals court said.

In Mr. Panetti’s appeal to the Supreme Court, his lawyers argue that the appeals court has distorted Justice Powell’s meaning by failing to take the delusions into account. “The moral force of retribution is lost if an inmate believes that his execution is being carried out through a conspiracy of demonic forces rather than as a lawful punishment for a horrific crime,” their brief argues.

In a brief urging the justices to accept the appeal, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy organization, said “this case exemplifies why mere ‘awareness,’ the test applied by the Fifth Circuit, is not a meaningful requirement for determining whether to execute prisoners who are severely mentally ill.”

Maro Robbins of the San Antonio Express-News has, "High court to look at death row case."

Panetti, who was found competent to stand trial, insisted on representing himself and at trial wore a purple cowboy outfit. Six years ago, Panetti's lawyers say, he stopped taking medication and his hallucinations took firm hold.

Panetti has told psychologists he doesn't believe the state wants to execute him because he murdered his in-laws. As he tells it, the state's true motive is to silence his preaching of the gospel.

A federal judge in Austin concluded about two years ago that Panetti does indeed suffer from mental illness. The case is now a debate over the premise — articulated 21 years ago by Justice Louis Powell — that it's unconstitutional to execute convicts "who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it."

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the tribunal that reviews federal appeals from Texas, ruled in May that Panetti's execution could proceed.

The judges said Panetti simply needed to be aware of the state's reason for putting him to death; he didn't need to believe it.

Yesterday afternoon's post has links and earlier coverage of the Panetti case.