Beneath Even Texas
Wednesday, February 4, 2004; Page A22

UNLESS TEXAS authorities or the courts come to their senses, Scott Louis Panetti will be executed tomorrow for the double murder of his in-laws more than a decade ago. Texas is unique among the states of the union in its unbridled enthusiasm for capital punishment; it has executed about 35 percent of those put to death nationally since 1976. But even against this bloody backdrop, Mr. Panetti's execution would stand out. The state would be killing someone who is seriously mentally ill and who, despite that fact, was permitted to represent himself at trial and thereby end any chance that a jury might take his illness into account.

There is no dispute that Mr. Panetti killed Joe and Amanda Alvarado. Nor is there any question that he had a long history of schizophrenia before the killings, including a number of hospitalizations. His competency even to stand trial, in fact, was seriously in doubt and caused the first jury that heard the matter to deadlock. Yet not only did the court permit his trial to go forward, the judge let him fire his counsel and handle his own defense. So, in a case where any competent defense lawyer had a potentially compelling insanity defense, he appeared before the jury dressed in a purple cowboy outfit. He tried to subpoena Jesus (address: "everywhere"; county of residence: "heaven") and John F. Kennedy. He rambled incoherently. And, hardly surprisingly, the jury convicted him on capital charges.

We have argued before that the right to act as one's own lawyer -- recognized by the Supreme Court in 1975 -- is a constitutional paradox, because it entitles a defendant to what no reasonable person would want: the ability to compromise his own interests in court. But giving that right to the seriously mentally ill is a cruel joke, akin to handing a loaded gun to someone known to be suicidal. Executing people with serious mental illnesses is, in any event, a barbaric practice. In Mr. Panetti's impending execution, Texas will be killing a man who is not merely indisputably delusional but who may be on death row precisely because of his illness -- because his thought disturbances prevented a jury from hearing the case that he should be spared. Such justice is unbefitting even Texas.