Texas...really this isn't a good image
That's right even if you are mentally ill and didn't even take part of the crime...you still get to visit death row...
Texas to execute mentally ill man in controversial case
Aug 21 05:43 AM US/Eastern
Texas To Execute Mentally Ill Man Who Was Accomplice In Murder
Texas is scheduled Thursday to execute a mentally ill man for conspiracy to murder in a case that death penalty opponents say illustrates why the practice is deeply flawed.
Jeffery Lee Wood, 35, "has never taken a human life by his own hands," and "was outside the building in a car at the time of the murder," his attorneys said in a statement.
Wood's partner in crime, Daniel Reneau, was executed in 2002 for killing a store manager during a robbery.
"At Reneau's trial, the prosecution had argued that Reneau was the person chiefly responsible for the crime and that Wood's role was secondary," the Death Penalty Information Center said.
"Wood was involved in the robbery in this case because of his longstanding mental illness that allowed him to be easily manipulated by the principal actor, Daniel Reneau," his lawyers argued.
Texas is the top executioner in the United States, having conducted 413 executions over the last 30 years, out of a national total of 1,119 for that period.
It is also one of the few US states that permit capital punishment in a case involving conspiracy to murder, not murder itself.
Seven people were executed for conspiracy after 1976, when the death penalty was re-authorized in the United States, but Wood will be the first to die since 1996.
"Executing someone who didn't kill violates the most basic principles of justice," David Fathi, US program director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
In right-leaning Texas, support for the death penalty and the state's tough "law-and-order" approach remains high, with advocates arguing the punishment is just, deters crime and provides comfort to victims' families.
Ambiguity surrounding mental illness also makes Wood's case controversial.
Wood's lawyers asked the governor of Texas to delay Wood's execution by one month, after he had been in solitary confinement on Death Row for ten years, 23 hours a day, to evaluate his mental health.
In 1986, the Supreme Court effectively banned executing anyone too mentally ill to understand what was to happen to them and why. But it did not establish criteria for evaluating mental competency.
"If a person is only mentally ill and not incompetent, the decisions are less clear and are up to individual judgments by the governor or the jury," Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information center, told AFP.
In March 2008, Richard Taylor, condemned to death for murdering a prison guard 27 years earlier when he was gravely afflicted with schizophrenia, saw his death penalty commuted to life in prison in the southern state of Tennessee.
But Kelsey Patterson was executed in Texas in May 2004 despite having been diagnosed with paranoia and schizophrenia prior to his criminal act.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently authorized the state penal system to administer, by force if necessary, psychotropic medicine to two convicts on Death Row, to render them mentally competent and subject to execution.
"It is awkward and quite strange to see states force inmates to take medication so they can be killed, but this is the hateful nature of our capital punishment system," Rick Halperin of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty told AFP.
"It has very little to do with logic, and certainly nothing to do with compassion."
The case of Raymond Riles, on death row since April 2, 1976 -- more than 32 years -- is emblematic of the ambiguity surrounding mentally ill inmates.
His execution was delayed three times, and after 1986 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice never set a new date for it. But he is still on Death Row.
Texas to execute mentally ill man in controversial case
Aug 21 05:43 AM US/Eastern
Texas To Execute Mentally Ill Man Who Was Accomplice In Murder
Texas is scheduled Thursday to execute a mentally ill man for conspiracy to murder in a case that death penalty opponents say illustrates why the practice is deeply flawed.
Jeffery Lee Wood, 35, "has never taken a human life by his own hands," and "was outside the building in a car at the time of the murder," his attorneys said in a statement.
Wood's partner in crime, Daniel Reneau, was executed in 2002 for killing a store manager during a robbery.
"At Reneau's trial, the prosecution had argued that Reneau was the person chiefly responsible for the crime and that Wood's role was secondary," the Death Penalty Information Center said.
"Wood was involved in the robbery in this case because of his longstanding mental illness that allowed him to be easily manipulated by the principal actor, Daniel Reneau," his lawyers argued.
Texas is the top executioner in the United States, having conducted 413 executions over the last 30 years, out of a national total of 1,119 for that period.
It is also one of the few US states that permit capital punishment in a case involving conspiracy to murder, not murder itself.
Seven people were executed for conspiracy after 1976, when the death penalty was re-authorized in the United States, but Wood will be the first to die since 1996.
"Executing someone who didn't kill violates the most basic principles of justice," David Fathi, US program director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
In right-leaning Texas, support for the death penalty and the state's tough "law-and-order" approach remains high, with advocates arguing the punishment is just, deters crime and provides comfort to victims' families.
Ambiguity surrounding mental illness also makes Wood's case controversial.
Wood's lawyers asked the governor of Texas to delay Wood's execution by one month, after he had been in solitary confinement on Death Row for ten years, 23 hours a day, to evaluate his mental health.
In 1986, the Supreme Court effectively banned executing anyone too mentally ill to understand what was to happen to them and why. But it did not establish criteria for evaluating mental competency.
"If a person is only mentally ill and not incompetent, the decisions are less clear and are up to individual judgments by the governor or the jury," Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information center, told AFP.
In March 2008, Richard Taylor, condemned to death for murdering a prison guard 27 years earlier when he was gravely afflicted with schizophrenia, saw his death penalty commuted to life in prison in the southern state of Tennessee.
But Kelsey Patterson was executed in Texas in May 2004 despite having been diagnosed with paranoia and schizophrenia prior to his criminal act.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently authorized the state penal system to administer, by force if necessary, psychotropic medicine to two convicts on Death Row, to render them mentally competent and subject to execution.
"It is awkward and quite strange to see states force inmates to take medication so they can be killed, but this is the hateful nature of our capital punishment system," Rick Halperin of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty told AFP.
"It has very little to do with logic, and certainly nothing to do with compassion."
The case of Raymond Riles, on death row since April 2, 1976 -- more than 32 years -- is emblematic of the ambiguity surrounding mentally ill inmates.
His execution was delayed three times, and after 1986 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice never set a new date for it. But he is still on Death Row.
posted by The Sage at 9:52 AM
2 Comments:
I have never seen an angel, nor have I ever seen a demon.
The greatest deeds of good and evil have been done by man.
Killing the mentally ill falls under "evil" in my mind.
it is truly mind blowing how narrow minded some people are.
What's crazy....he didn't even do anything
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