is a death row inmate in Texas, who has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia and schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der and believes he is at the cen­ter of a strug­gle between God and Satan. The state has con­tin­ued to insist he is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. Panetti rep­re­sent­ed him­self at his tri­al, appear­ing in court wear­ing a cow­boy out­fit and mak­ing bizarre, ram­bling state­ments. He attempt­ed to sub­poe­na Jesus Christ, the pope, and 200 oth­ers. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed Panetti a rehear­ing on his claim of incom­pe­tence, say­ing that the state’s def­i­n­i­tion of insan­i­ty was too restric­tive. The state has main­tained that because Panetti acknowl­edges he is being exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of his in-laws, he is sane enough to be exe­cut­ed. Pointing to the tes­ti­mo­ny of psy­chi­atric experts, his lawyers have argued the state’s sim­ple cause-and-effect cri­te­ri­on is insuf­fi­cient to estab­lish san­i­ty, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that Panetti views his crime through a lens of delu­sion. They have asked the Supreme Court to again con­sid­er the case, argu­ing that the state’s def­i­n­i­tion is still over­ly restric­tive and ignores the com­plete pic­ture pre­sent­ed by Panetti’s his­to­ry of seri­ous mental illness. 

(S. Martelle, ​“Is Scott Panetti sane enough to be exe­cut­ed? The dev­il is in the details,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 2014). See Mental Illness for fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Panetti, includ­ing a video sum­ma­ry of his case from the Texas Defender Service. See also Supreme Court.

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