Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Whether Texas Man is Mentally Competent to be Executed

On Wednesday, April 18, at 1 PM, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in Panetti v. Quarterman. This case focus­es on the ques­tion of whether an inmate must have a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of his crime and why he is being pun­ished pri­or to exe­cu­tion, or whether mere aware­ness of his sit­u­a­tion is suf­fi­cient for men­tal com­pe­ten­cy. For a fuller descrip­tion of the case, see Supreme Court (Pending 2007 cas­es). This page includes links to some of the legal briefs filed in this case. For a broad­er dis­cus­sion of issues beyond the lim­it­ed scope of this case, see Mental Illness. (Posted April 16, 2007).