The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 28, 2007, that Scott Panetti, a man with severe men­tal ill­ness on Texas’s death row, deserves a rehear­ing on his claim of men­tal incom­pe­tence. The Court’s 5 – 4 rul­ing over­turned a deci­sion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that had used an over­ly restric­tive def­i­n­i­tion of what con­sti­tutes insan­i­ty. The low­er court had held that mere knowl­edge of one’s crime, with­out a ratio­nal under­stand­ing, was suf­fi­cient to allow an exe­cu­tion to go for­ward. The Court also said that the Texas state court failed to pro­vide Panetti with the kind of review guar­an­teed under the Constitution. The case is Panetti v. Quarterman.

See Supreme Court.

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