Three sched­uled exe­cu­tions in May – Osvaldo Torres in Oklahoma, Kelsey Patterson in Texas, and Sammy Perkins in North Carolina – raise trou­bling ques­tions about the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty.

Torres is a Mexican for­eign nation­al whose exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for May 18, just weeks after the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States should review the cas­es of 51 Mexican for­eign nation­als on death row in the U.S., includ­ing Torres’s case. At issue is whether the U.S. vio­lat­ed the rights of Mexican for­eign nation­als by not com­ply­ing with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A state­ment from the Mexican gov­ern­ment read, ​“The gov­ern­ment of Mexico calls on U.S. fed­er­al author­i­ties to imme­di­ate­ly take mea­sures intend­ed to pro­tect the life of Osvaldo Torres, com­ply­ing with the order of the World Court.” (Associated Press, March 2, 2004)

Kelsey Patterson is a para­noid schiz­o­phrenic with a long his­to­ry of men­tal health prob­lems, includ­ing sev­er­al hos­pi­tal­iza­tions in the years lead­ing up to the 1992 mur­der for which he is on death row. His exe­cu­tion is also sched­uled for May 18. A recent Amnesty International report detail­ing Patterson’s case notes that in 2000, a fed­er­al judge not­ed that ​“Patterson had no motive for the killings… he claims he com­mits acts invol­un­tar­i­ly and out­side forces con­trol him through implants in his brain and body. Patterson has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained he is a vic­tim of an elab­o­rate con­spir­a­cy, and his lawyers and his doc­tors are part of that con­spir­a­cy. He refus­es to coop­er­ate with either; he has refused to be exam­ined by men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als since 1984, he refus­es den­tal treat­ment, and he refus­es to acknowl­edge that his lawyers rep­re­sent him.” (Amnesty International Press Release, March 18, 2004) Read the Amnesty Report on Kelsey Patterson.

North Carolina plans to exe­cute Sammy Perkins, who was diag­nosed with bipo­lar dis­or­der in 1997, on May 21. At Perkins’ tri­al, psy­chi­a­trist Billy Royal tes­ti­fied that Perkins’s men­tal ill­ness in com­bi­na­tion with his con­sump­tion of both pre­scribed and illic­it drugs and alco­hol impaired his abil­i­ty to dis­tin­guish right from wrong, make plans, or pre­med­i­tate his actions. (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)

See Upcoming Executions. See also Foreign Nationals; Mental Illness.

Citation Guide