Lawyer makes final bid to stop execution of mentally ill killer

Snip from The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
18 May 2004


Lawyers acting for a paranoid schizophrenic due to be executed today in Texas were last night placing their fading hopes on a last-minute intervention from a court to halt the sentence on the ground that their client is mentally unfit.

The team representing Kelsey Patterson, 50, argue that he is technically insane. Patterson believes that microchips have been planted inside his head to control him.

"Right now, my best hopes are with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans," said Mr Patterson's lawyer, Gary Hart. "Essentially, the position of the executive branch has been that it does want to get involved."

In his clemency petition, sent to parole board and the Texas Governor, Rick Perry, Mr Hart argued: "There are compelling reasons for not executing capital offenders who suffer debilitating mental illnesses that are similar to the reasons society will no longer tolerate the execution of the mentally retarded. Execution of someone such as Kelsey, whose paranoid schizophrenia is severe and chronic, serves neither the retributive nor the deterrent functions the death penalty was intended for."
More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=522379

no chance in heaven he`ll not be murdered..i `m sure if there is a hell ,good ole` boy Perry will have a spot with his name on it. no wonder the rest of the civilized world is revolted at our cruelty..the murder of a mentally unfit person -just how much lower can a society sink?

Although I hold out little hope that my fellow Americans will change their stance in my lifetime, I would hope that we could at least agree that we can stop imposing the death penalty against those who are mentally retarded and juveniles.

I'm not saying these people should be free to roam the streets, but how is justice served by killing those who really can't be accountable for their actions?

that temporarily obscures the visible characteristics of their illness without actually healing or stopping it, just so that the patient can appear to be normal, making it ok to justify their execution.

"The execution of those with mental illness or "the insane" is clearly prohibited by international law. Virtually every country in the world prohibits the execution of people with mental illness.

The UN Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of those Facing the Death Penalty, adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council resolution of May 25, 1984, states: "…nor shall the death sentence be carried out…on persons who have become insane."

In 1997, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions stated that governments that continue to use the death penalty "with respect to minors and the mentally ill are particularly called upon to bring their domestic legislation into conformity with international legal standards."

In April 2000, the UN Commission on Human Rights urged all states that maintain the death penalty "not to impose it on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder; not to execute any such person." "


http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/mental_illness.html