US Supreme Court rules 5-4 to throw out death sentence of mentally disturbed Texas inmate in Panetti v. Quarterman: More information and link to ruling (authored by Justice Kennedy) will be posted as it becomes available. SCOTUSblog is providing live coverage of today's case announcements as they are read from the bench at this link.
Update: Today's majority opinion in Panetti is here (30-page pdf) (Kennedy, joined by Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens); dissent is here (21-page pdf) (Thomas, joined by Roberts, Alito and Scalia).
- Pete Yost has this early coverage for AP, entitled "Execution of mentally ill killer blocked. Todd Gillman has this coverage for the Dallas Morning News (via WFAA.com)
Dallas Morning News excerpt:
The Supreme Court blocked the execution Thursday of a mentally ill Texas man whose lawyers say he is too delusional to understand the legal process.
Scott Panetti, a paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed his in-laws 15 years ago in front of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old daughter. He now thinks that Satan is using the state’s penal machinery to stop him from preaching the Gospel.
The case posed the issue of how insane a person must be before a death sentence becomes unconstitutional, and the ruling came at the end of the Supreme Court’s term.
At trial, Mr. Panetti insisted on representing himself. He wore a purple cowboy costume, tried to subpoena Jesus, the pope and John F. Kennedy, and testified in the persona of his alter ego "Sarge." He'd been hospitalized for mental illness 14 times in the decade before the murders. Lawyers handling his appeal argued few, if any, death row inmates are as mentally incompetent and that putting him to death would amount to “mindless vengeance” with no retributive purpose.
Four lower courts did find him competent to stand trial, and a jury rejected his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
At oral arguments in April, justices wrestled with the puzzling situation of an inmate who knows he’s been convicted, knows what he’s convicted for, knows the state plans to punish him – but suffers from a delusion that makes him ascribe satanic motives to the authorities.
Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, arguing for the prosecution, urged justices to focus on the central fact – essential to a legal finding of mental competence -- that Mr. Panetti understands that he is guilty of murder and that he faces execution for that murder.
The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness had all urged the Supreme Court to spare Mr. Panetti, arguing that regardless of current legal definitions, if a person has a mental disorder that “significantly impairs his or her capacity to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment,” that person isn’t competent to be executed. ...AP excerpts:
...In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that Panetti had petitioned the federal courts twice in his case, but that the law allows only one petition.
...Siding with Kennedy in the majority were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Joining Thomas in dissent were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. ...
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