On Thursday, November 6, 2014, the trial court judge in Kerrville, Texas refused to withdraw or modify the December 3, 2014execution date for Scott Panetti.
Below is a statement from Kathryn Kase, one of Mr. Panetti’s attorneys and Executive Director of Texas Defender Service.
Statement from Kathryn Kase, attorney for Scott Panetti
“Texas has conducted itself disgracefully in the case of Scott Panetti, who has had schizophrenia for over thirty years and suffers from a fixed delusion that Satan is trying to kill him through the state of Texas. Yesterday, a judge ruled that Texas will not slow its rush to execute to Mr. Panetti, despite the fact that he has not had a competency hearing in seven years.
“This shameful case has revealed the state’s disregard for the dignity of the mentally ill at every turn: from allowing Mr. Panetti to represent himself at his capital trial dressed in a cowboy costume despite his severe mental illness to more recently, when the state did not disclose to Mr. Panetti’s attorneys that his execution date had been set. It is extremely troubling that we only learned about the execution date from the media two weeks after the date had been scheduled.
“Mr. Panetti went to death row in 1995 a man who had already been hospitalized over a dozen times for the incurable and devastating illness of schizophrenia; he attempted to represent himself in court through the haze of his ongoing schizophrenia, and he remains a man with schizophrenia and a fixed delusion today. The prospect of his execution, particularly following such a profoundly compromised legal process, is morally reprehensible.”
-Kathryn Kase, attorney for Scott Panetti and Executive Director of Texas Defender Service
-November 7, 2014
Background on the case and a link to the Emergency Motion for Hearing are available here.