Tag Archives: Scott Panetti

State news

Panetti's date with death delayed

I was certain Scott Louis Panetti was a dead man.

Then the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in to give the lunatic a stay of execution in the Texas prison death chamber.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/03/schizophrenic-inmate-be-executed-wednesday-night/

What’s next? Well, for starters Panetti deserves something he’s lacked for the past seven years: a mental competency evaluation.

Panetti’s guilt in the 1992 double murder of his mother- and father-in-law is beyond dispute.

What’s at issue here is his competence. He suffers from schizophrenia. He served as his own attorney in his 1995 trial. He sought to call as witnesses President John Kennedy and Jesus Christ. He wore clown suits in court.

The fact that the Texas criminal justice system allowed this man to go to trial under these circumstances speaks to the travesty the state occasionally allows to occur in its courtrooms.

Gov. Rick Perry has been bombarded with requests to delay the execution — which was set for tonight. He pleas came not from bleeding-heart liberals, but also from committed Christian conservatives. One doesn’t expect Perry to heed the pleas of the lefties, but the righties might have some sway with the Republican governor and possible 2016 presidential candidate.

The 5th Circuit’s stay order was brief. It does allow for judges “to fully consider the late arriving and complex legal questions at issue in this matter.”

A competency examination — a thorough and comprehensive exam — needs to be the first and last orders of business here. Such an exam can determine whether Panetti is truly nuts or is faking it, as some have suggested in arguing for his execution.

Panetti committed the crime. Should he die for it, given his demonstrated craziness? No.

 

State news

This guy is a goner

Scott Panetti is as good as dead, sad to say.

He’s a Texas death row inmate who’s set to be executed Wednesday for the horrific deaths in 1992 of his mother- and father-in-law. His guilt is not in question. His mental state, though, is at the heart of a dispute over whether he deserves to die for his crime.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/01/Paroles-Board-Denies-Panetti-Execution-Halt/

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has ruled against granting him a delay in his date with death. That means it’s now up to outgoing Gov. Rick Perry and the Court of Criminal Appeals to determine Panetti’s fate.

Panetti is diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. He didn’t even get a fair trial, as he represented himself and sought to call as witnesses Charles Manson and Jesus Christ.

Texas law, though, allows loony defendants to engage in such nonsense, even when it appears to impinge on their rights to fair and impartial justice.

Panetti never should walk free. He doesn’t deserve to be put to death for this crime.

Do not expect Gov. Perry or the state’s highest criminal court to spare him. The Texas criminal justice system just isn’t built for compassion.

 

legal news, State news

Now the judge opposes death penalty

So, we’re supposed to sing high praise because a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge has declared his opposition to the death penalty.

Is that what we’re supposed to do?

I would, except that Judge Tom Price is about to leave the state’s highest criminal appellate court in January, which makes his declaration a mere symbolic act.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/26/criminal-appeals-judge-price-i-oppose-death-penalt/

Price, who’s being replaced by Bert Richardson — the judge presiding over Gov. Rick Perry’s abuse of power court proceedings — wrote this, according to the Texas Tribune: “Given a substantial amount of consideration to the propriety of the death penalty as a form of punishment for those who commit capital murder, and I now believe that it should be abolished.”

Price’s statement came as he was one of three dissenting votes rejecting an appeal for clemency for death row inmate Scott Panetti, who’s scheduled to die by lethal injection in just a few days. Panetti’s been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and death penalty foes have sought to have his death sentence commuted.

Price now is on board with them.

But he’s leaving the court.

So what good is his declaration … now?

Perhaps he can carry his opposition into the private sector and try to talk some reason into his former CCA colleagues who continue to reject other appeals on similar grounds.

“My conclusion is not reached hastily,” Price wrote in his dissent. “Rather, it is the result of my deliberative thought process from having presided over three death-penalty trials as a trial court judge and having decided countless issues related to capital murder and the death penalty as a judge on this court.”

Price didn’t seek re-election this year. He’s served on the all-Republican CCA since being elected in 1996. I applaud his coming out against capital punishment. I now hope he carries the campaign forward.

 

State news

Panetti deserves to be executed? No way!

Some time back, I declared my opposition to capital punishment.

Scott Louis Panetti offers a textbook example of why the punishment as applied in Texas is barbaric.

Panetti committed an awful crime in the early 1990s. He shot his in-laws to death. His guilt is beyond doubt.

But it gets a whole lot trickier from there.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/texas-prepares-to-execute-schizophrenic-inmate-despite-call-for-clemency/ar-BBfAHvI

He represented himself during his 1995 trial and during testimony he sought to call — get ready for this — John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ as witnesses.

Panetti, you see, is a lunatic. He suffers from acute schizophrenia. He’s nuts. Panetti doesn’t deserve to die for this crime because he quite likely didn’t know what on God’s Earth he was doing when he killed his mother- and father-in-law.

He’s set to die in Dec. 3 in the death chamber in Livingston, Texas.

Some officials, including former Gov. Mark White, have written a letter asking for clemency. “We are deeply troubled that a capital sentence was the result of a trial where a man with schizophrenia represented himself, dressed in a costume,” the letter stated. “We come together from across the partisan and ideological divide and are united in our belief that, irrespective of whether we support or oppose the death penalty, this is not an appropriate case for execution.”

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, isn’t known for exhibiting compassion regarding capital punishment cases. My guess is that the court will dismiss the request, perhaps suggesting that Panetti was faking his lunacy.

Panetti’s craziness appears real to me. He shouldn’t die for the crime he committed.