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.