Court Blocks Execution of Mentally Ill Man

June 25, 2007— -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the State of Texas cannot put to death a mentally ill death row inmate even though he claims he doesn't fully understand why he is being executed.

Scott Panetti, who has battled mental illness for years, brutally murdered his estranged wife's parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado. A jury found him competent to stand trial for the murders and a judge allowed him to represent himself in court.

At his trial each day, Panetti wore a cowboy hat, bandana and boots. He rambled incoherently and contended that it was one of his own alternate personalities who had committed the crime. He attempted to subpoena Jesus Christ.

The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death in 1995. After years of appeals, Panetti's case reached the Supreme Court in April, when the justices heard arguments about whether Panetti can be executed if he doesn't fully understand that representatives of the State of Texas will put him to death for his crime.

Keith Hampton, a lawyer for Panetti said, "We believe he has to have a rational understanding as to why he is being executed -- otherwise society is denied a sense of retribution for his crime."

Panetti's lawyers wanted the justices to settle on a definition of mental illness for the purpose of competency for execution.

In 1986 the Supreme Court found in Ford v. Wainwright that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment forbids the execution of individuals suffering from insanity and identified several reasons why the court found execution of the insane to be unconstitutional.

The court questioned the value of executing a person who does not comprehend why he is being put to death. Panetti's lawyers wanted the court to clarify that ruling and define a test for establishing insanity in this context.

Attorneys from the State of Texas representing the state's Department of Criminal Justice argued against Panetti. In briefs, the lawyers supported Panetti's death sentence writing, "No judge or jury has ever found him incompetent" and citing testimony by a psychiatrist who observed that Panetti understood why he was facing capital-murder charges, and the significance of the punishment he was going to receive.

In briefs, lawyers also argued that there is evidence that Panetti was being "deliberately manipulative" to "create the impression of mental illness."

Supporters of the death penalty, like Professor John McAdams of Marquette University, say they are weary of arguments made by Panetti and supported by groups such as the Counsel for American Psychological Association and the Counsel for National Alliance on Mental Illness.

McAdams argued, "Once you let the psychologists loose they can explain why no one is responsible for anything." He is worried about a so-called competency for execution test saying, "it sounds like a huge incentive to play dumb and pretend to have illusions. It rewards people shrewd enough to fake mental illness."

But advocates for the mentally ill argue that Panetti's case is important because while an individual might be determined competent to stand trial, he may suffer from a mental disorder that makes him later unable to understand his execution.

The American Psychological Association has proposed that if a court finds that a prisoner has a mental disorder that prohibits him from understanding the nature of the punishment, the "sentence of death should be reduced to a lesser punishment."

Ronald Honberg of the National Alliance on Mental Illness says that despite the Supreme Court's holding in the Ford, there is still a real problem with the standards courts use to define mental illness. Honberg says, "there are lots of people on death row how have mental illness, there are only a few who are escaping the death penalty."