The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas could not execute a severely mentally ill man because he could not comprehend why he was going to be put to death.
The 5 to 4 ruling, written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, spared the life of Scott Louis Panetti, 49, who murdered his former in-laws in 1992 after battling mental health problems for years.
Panetti has been on death row in Texas since 1995 and has been diagnosed as schizophrenic.
Both Panetti's lawyers and attorneys for the state said he was mentally disturbed. The question was whether he was sufficiently mentally ill that his execution would violate the 8th Amendment's bar against cruel and unusual punishment.
Panetti was hospitalized for mental illness 14 times in the decade before using a shotgun to kill his former in-laws in the Texas hill country town of Fredericksburg, as his estranged wife Sonja and her child watched.
During Panetti's trial, he exhibited bizarre behavior, wearing a purple cowboy suit and 10-gallon hat and subpoenaing President Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus Christ as witnesses.
Panetti was ruled mentally competent to stand trial, mentally competent to represent himself and mentally competent to be executed. Before Thursday's decision, four courts, including the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, rejected Panetti's lawyers' pleas to spare his life.
The Supreme Court sent the case back to a federal judge in Austin to reassess Panetti's mental health in light of the decision issued Thursday. Ted Cruz, the Texas solicitor general, said he would continue to press for Panetti's execution.
The case presented a particularly thorny question because evidence was introduced that Panetti was aware that he had killed Amanda and Joe Alvarado. But expert testimony was presented that Panetti, known as "the preacher" on Texas' death row, believed he was going to be executed because Texas was conspiring with the devil to block him from preaching the Gospel to fellow inmates -- not because he murdered the Alvarados.
At an oral argument in April, Cruz asserted that Panetti was capable of understanding the connection between his crime and his punishment and was exaggerating his delusions.
But defense lawyer Gregory Wiercioch, of the Texas Defender Service, told the justices that Panetti did not rationally understand why he was to be executed. Consequently, Wiercioch said, killing Panetti would serve no legitimate retributive purpose.
