Federal Court Holds Competency Hearing for Scott Panetti

A fed­er­al dis­trict court in Texas has heard evi­dence on, and now must decide, whether a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill man is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. On October 24, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas began pre­sid­ing over the com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing of Scott Panetti (pic­tured), whose case estab­lished the con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard for com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed, to deter­mine whether he has a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of his death sen­tence and the rea­son for it or is so men­tal­ly ill that he has become mentally incompetent. 

Despite a his­to­ry of men­tal health hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, con­tin­u­ing bizarre behav­ior, and evi­dence that he had stopped tak­ing his antipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tion, a Texas tri­al court per­mit­ted Scott Panetti to rep­re­sent him­self in his cap­i­tal tri­al for the mur­der of his in-laws in 1995. In a tri­al his lawyers have described as ​“a mock­ery of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” Panetti appeared before the court wear­ing a pur­ple cow­boy suit, made bizarre state­ments that fright­ened the jurors, and attempt­ed to sub­poe­na Jesus Christ, the pope, and John F. Kennedy. The jury sen­tenced him to death.

Psychiatrists have diag­nosed Panetti with chron­ic schiz­o­phre­nia and schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, and con­tin­u­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed his delu­sions, para­noia, hal­lu­ci­na­tions, and dis­or­dered think­ing in his med­ical records over a span of 40 years. Greg Wiercioch, one of the lawyers rep­re­sent­ing him in the com­pe­ten­cy pro­ceed­ings, said Panetti believes that he’s ​“engaged in spir­i­tu­al war­fare with Satan,” and that his exe­cu­tion is a con­spir­a­cy to stop his evan­ge­lism and to con­ceal evi­dence of a pedophil­ia ring in Fredericksburg, Texas. He believes he killed his in-laws when an evil spir­it named Sarge Ironhorse took over his body. ​“His men­tal ill­ness is almost like a prism that’s dis­tort­ing and bend­ing real­i­ty,” Wiercioch said.

In 2004, Texas issued a death war­rant seek­ing to exe­cute Panetti. His coun­sel moved to halt the exe­cu­tion on grounds of men­tal incom­pe­ten­cy. After fail­ing to tran­scribe court pro­ceed­ings and deny­ing Panetti’s coun­sel the assis­tance of a men­tal health expert, the tri­al court appoint­ed its own experts to eval­u­ate Panetti and denied his incom­pe­ten­cy claim with­out a hear­ing. The Texas fed­er­al courts stayed Panetti’s exe­cu­tion, grant­ed fund­ing for defense men­tal health experts, and con­duct­ed an evi­den­tiary hear­ing. It then reject­ed Panetti’s com­pe­ten­cy claim, apply­ing the stan­dard announced by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that ​“require[d] the peti­tion­er know no more than the fact of his impend­ing exe­cu­tion and the fac­tu­al pred­i­cate for the exe­cu­tion.” The Fifth Circuit affirmed, hold­ing that ​“a petitioner’s delu­sion­al beliefs — even those which may result in a fun­da­men­tal fail­ure to appre­ci­ate the con­nec­tion between the petitioner’s crime and his exe­cu­tion — do not bear on the ques­tion of whether the peti­tion­er ​‘knows the rea­son for his execution.’”

In a land­mark rul­ing in Panetti v. Quarterman in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, hold­ng that the state court com­pe­ten­cy pro­ceed­ings had vio­lat­ed Panetti’s right to due process and that the fed­er­al courts had applied the wrong test for com­pe­ten­cy. ​“A prisoner’s aware­ness of the State’s ratio­nale for an exe­cu­tion is not the same as a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of it,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a 5 – 4 Court major­i­ty. The Court returned the case to the low­er fed­er­al courts to deter­mine whether the delu­sions from Panetti’s psy­chot­ic dis­or­der ​“so impair[ed his] con­cept of real­i­ty that he can­not reach a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the rea­son for the execution.” 

On remand, the dis­trict court again denied Panetti’s com­pe­ten­cy claim, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that rul­ing, allow­ing his exe­cu­tion to go for­ward. In 2014, Texas sched­uled a new exe­cu­tion date, but the Fifth Circuit issued a stay and ordered a full hear­ing on Panetti’s com­pe­ten­cy. In his open­ing state­ment to the dis­trict court dur­ing the October 24 pro­ceed­ings, Wiercioch not­ed, ​“It is unprece­dent­ed to be lit­i­gat­ing on an exe­cu­tion com­pe­ten­cy claim for 20 years now.”

Assistant Attorney General Jay Clendenin chal­lenged Panetti’s claim, argu­ing that his incon­sis­tent state­ments demon­strate aware­ness of his actions that lead to the Alvarados’ deaths and that he under­stands the pur­pose of his exe­cu­tion. Panetti’s experts coun­tered that the pros­e­cu­tor was inac­cu­rate­ly attempt­ing to apply ratio­nal thought process­es to explain Panetti’s irra­tional mind. Mark Cunningham, a clin­i­cal and foren­sic psy­chol­o­gist told the state’s lawyers, ​“You’re impos­ing log­ic and lin­ear­i­ty on Mr. Panetti … [H]is mind is not attempt­ing to line up and make things con­sis­tent.” Wiercioch told the court that men­tal ill­ness is more nuanced than the pros­e­cu­tion had sug­gest­ed. ​“The Supreme Court rec­og­nized that men­tal ill­ness is not bina­ry, such that a per­son is entire­ly healthy, or so insane that he or she can do noth­ing. It exists on a con­tin­u­um, like phys­i­cal ill­ness,” he said.

In an October 22, 2022 op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman, legal expert Brian D. Shannon sug­gest­ed that Panetti’s case is illus­tra­tive of the bar­ri­ers to obtain­ing relief for men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers. ​“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,” he wrote. Yet the ​“ratio­nal under­stand­ing” stan­dard of com­pe­ten­cy pro­nounced in Panetti’s own case has rarely been enforced. An August 2022 study of fed­er­al appel­late cas­es involv­ing Panetti claims called the stan­dard ​“an illu­sion, lit­tle more than a paper vic­to­ry for defen­dants with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness.” In the fif­teen years since the deci­sion, a fed­er­al cir­cuit court has found a Panetti vio­la­tion only once.