The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 19, 2018 stayed the exe­cu­tion of Kwame Rockwell (pic­tured), a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill death-row pris­on­er suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia, who had been sched­uled to die on October 24. The court found that Rockwell had raised ​“sub­stan­tial doubt that he is not com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed” and reversed a rul­ing by the Tarrant County District Court that had reject­ed Rockwell’s com­pe­ten­cy claim with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing and with­out pro­vid­ing funds for him to obtain a com­pe­ten­cy eval­u­a­tion. The appeals court ordered the tri­al court to appoint ​“at least two men­tal-health experts” to eval­u­ate Rockwell’s com­pe­ten­cy. On October 16, Rockwell’s lawyers had appealed the Tarrant County order argu­ing that the tri­al court had abused its dis­cre­tion in reject­ing his com­pe­ten­cy claim The appeal argued that Rockwell ​“does not under­stand he is to be exe­cut­ed,” ​“has no under­stand­ing that he was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death,” and ​“does not com­pre­hend that he has been incar­cer­at­ed on death row since 2012 or even that he is present­ly incar­cer­at­ed in a Texas prison.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) that the Eighth Amendment pro­hibits the exe­cu­tion of pris­on­ers who have become ​“insane” — which the Court defined as being ​“unaware of the pun­ish­ment they are about to suf­fer and why they are to suf­fer it.” In 2007, in the Texas case of Panetti v. Quarterman, the Court explained that a pris­on­er whose delu­sions pre­vent him from hav­ing a ​“ratio­nal under­stand­ing” of these cir­cum­stances is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. A neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist who exam­ined Rockwell in July report­ed that Rockwell said he saw snakes and demons that were inside of him, appeared to be hear­ing voic­es, and, in response to a ques­tion about his name, said ​“my name is God.” The doctor’s affi­davit said Rockwell ​“does not under­stand or appre­ci­ate where he is, the nature of his charges, why he is in prison, or the nature of his pun­ish­ment.” Rockwell’s lawyers also pre­sent­ed the court with evi­dence of his sig­nif­i­cant fam­i­ly his­to­ry of psy­chot­ic ill­ness, includ­ing twelve fam­i­ly mem­bers across three gen­er­a­tions of his fam­i­ly with men­tal ill­ness diag­noses, and Rockwell’s own men­tal ill­ness in child­hood and as an adult. Citing prison records, the appeal states: ​“Rockwell has con­sis­tent­ly expe­ri­enced intense hal­lu­ci­na­tions and audi­to­ry delu­sions, despite spend­ing the major­i­ty of his sen­tence on four or more antipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tions con­cur­rent­ly. He is haunt­ed by snakes and demons. No med­ica­tions have been able to elim­i­nate his hal­lu­ci­na­tions or delusions.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly exclud­ed peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness from being sen­tenced to death or exe­cut­ed. A 2014 poll found that Americans by a two-to-one mar­gin oppose exe­cut­ing peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness. Several states have recent­ly con­sid­ered, but not adopt­ed, leg­is­la­tion to bar the death penal­ty for peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness­es. Rockwell’s tri­al lawyer did not present to the jury mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of Rockwell’s schiz­o­phre­nia or his family’s his­to­ry of psy­chot­ic men­tal ill­ness. Nonetheless, the Texas state and fed­er­al courts denied Rockwell’s claim that he had been pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion at sen­tenc­ing. In an opin­ion piece for Pacific Standard writ­ten before the Texas Court of Appeals grant­ed the stay, David M. Perry com­pared the courts’ treat­ment of Rockwell’s case with the recent stay of exe­cu­tion grant­ed to fel­low Texas pris­on­er Juan Segundo. Segundo was grant­ed a stay so the Tarrant County court could recon­sid­er his claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty after the Supreme Court had ruled that the stan­dard Texas had pre­vi­ous­ly applied uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly risked that some peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty would still be exe­cut­ed. ​“America still does­n’t have clear pro­tec­tions for peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness,” Perry explains. ​“These two cas­es in Texas remind us of the unfor­tu­nate diag­nos­tic lim­i­ta­tions that pro­tect only some peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties from the death penalty.”

(David M. Perry, KWAME ROCKWELL WILL BE THE NEXT DISABLED PERSON EXECUTED BY AMERICA, Pacific Standard, October 17, 2018; Keri Blakinger, Execution dates set for two con­vict­ed killers from Tarrant County, Houston Chronicle, May 16, 2018.) Read the Texas Court of Appeals stay order in Rockwell v. State. See Mental Illness.

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