YOUR-VOICE

Opinion: Executing Scott Panetti would be an appalling injustice

Brian D. Shannon

In Texas, we have come a long way in our understanding of mental illness and in how cases involving persons with mental illness are addressed in our courts. As someone with a lifelong concern for the fair treatment of individuals with severe mental illness, I have been encouraged by the significant increases in services and support in recent years. But as this month’s hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas shows, some aspects of the state’s criminal justice system still have a long way to go in dealing with people with severe mental illness convicted of serious crimes in a manner that is both humane and reflects society’s views regarding a just and fair process and outcomes.

In this Tuesday, May 27, 2008 file photo, the gurney used to restrain condemned prisoners during the lethal injection process is shown in the Texas death house in Huntsville.

After a 40-year documented history of severe mental illness, including schizophrenia characterized by profound thought disorder and paranoid delusions, Scott Panetti will be back in court later this month for consideration of whether he is competent for execution. The world remembers Panetti as the person with paranoid schizophrenia who wore a TV-Western cowboy costume and purple scarf while on trial for his life, insisted on and was inexplicably allowed by the trial court to defend himself without counsel, and attempted to subpoena the Pope, John F. Kennedy, and Jesus Christ.

Today, even the State’s own expert admits that Panetti is severely mentally ill and that he is not faking his condition or symptoms of paranoid/grandiose delusions and disorganized thinking. Panetti’s severe mental illness pre-dates the crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. In the decade leading up to the murder of his in-laws, Panetti was hospitalized a dozen times due to his psychotic behavior.

Panetti first succumbed to the delusion that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with Satan in 1986, when he became obsessed with the idea that the devil was in his house. He exhibited a series of bizarre behaviors to cleanse his home, including burying furniture in the backyard because he thought the devil was in his furniture.

Panetti’s trial was a mockery of the criminal justice system. His statements in court were bizarre and incomprehensible. He announced that he would assume the personality of “Sarge” and recounted gruesome details of the crime in the third person. He gestured as if pointing a rifle at the jury box -- visibly upsetting the jurors -- and matter-of-factly imitated the sound of shots being fired. After three decades in prison, Panetti’s thought disorder has only gotten worse.  

Following centuries of common law, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) that the Constitution forbids the execution of people with severe mental illness who do not understand the reason for their punishment. In Scott Panetti’s own case, the Supreme Court also held that the Eighth Amendment requires severely mentally ill individuals to have more than a bare factual awareness of the connection between the crime and the punishment; the person must possess a rational understanding of the reason for his execution (Panetti v. Quarterman 2007).  

Panetti does not have a logical understanding of his punishment. It is uncontested that Panetti suffers from delusions that his execution is somehow being orchestrated by Satan, working through the State, to put an end to his life for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to condemned men on death row, and to cover up what he claims to be corruption in Fredericksburg, where the crime occurred. He has no rational comprehension of the link between his crime and punishment. His psychotic condition is like a warped lens that distorts his perception of reality.

Our country no longer executes juveniles or people with intellectual disabilities. In ending the death penalty for these defendants, the Supreme Court cited their diminished capacity, and their  inability to engage in logical reasoning, control their impulses, or participate meaningfully in their own defense. These factors should apply with equal force to people with active symptoms of severe mental illness, such as delusions, highly disorganized thinking, and hallucinations. In Panetti’s case, it was an aberrant departure from basic fairness, as well as a constitutional violation, that the trial judge allowed him to carry on as he did while on trial for murder. The court had the power to insist Panetti be represented by counsel, but it did not.

It is hard to see why the State of Texas continues to pursue the execution of such a severely mentally ill person whose trial was a farce of justice. Scott Panetti has now served 30 years behind bars without a single incident of violence. Moreover, keeping him in prison for life remains a substantial punishment that will both protect the public yet also acknowledge his dignity as a human being with a serious brain disease. Surely, we have evolved enough in our understanding of serious mental illness to know that taking the life of this very sick man would cross a moral line and serve no legitimate purpose.

Shannon is the author of six editions of the guide book, Texas Criminal Procedure & the Offender with Mental Illness.