Texas says Scott Panetti is sane enough to execute, and that is insane
Texas says Scott Panetti is sane enough to execute, and that is insane
Katie Halper
26 Nov 2014 at 15:24 ET
Texas plans to kill Scott Panetti Wednesday December 3rd for the murder of his in-laws. The state argues that the 58-year-old paranoid schizophrenic is sane enough to be executed. And that, ironically, is inane… or dishonest and cruel. The state reaffirmed its commitment to not only capital punishment, but executing the mentally ill, in particular, on Tuesday, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied yet another motion for a stay of execution for Panetti. Not that it matters to Texas, apparently, but the evidence of Panetti’s severe mental illness is overwhelming. His upcoming lethal injection is even more criminal given that his mental health history is well documented and goes back nearly thirty years! Let’s take a look at the evidence of not just Panetti’s mental illness, but the numerous ways the courts and the state have failed him.
1.Scott Panetti was first diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 20 at the Brook Army Medical Center, shortly after being honorably discharged from the Navy in 1978.
2.Over the next 14 years leading up to the crime, Panetti was hospitalized thirteen times, both voluntarily and involuntarily and his shizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia were diagnosed again and again.
3.The Social Secuirty Administration deemed that Panetti’s schizophrenia was so debilitating, it entitled him to government benefits in 1986.
4.Panetti hallucinated that he killed the devil who was in his home, then washed the devil’s blood off the walls.
More:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/texas-says-scott-panetti-is-sane-enough-to-execute-and-that-is-insane/
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