Deep in the Heart of Texas

Here's a story that Nick would love. (I could actually hear him cackling in the background as I read the story.)

Scott Panetti was put on trial. He asked to represent himself. The great state of Texas agreed that that was fine by them.

Now there's an old saying that "the man who represents himself has a fool for a client". In this case: true.

In and out of mental institutions 14 times and addicted to drugs and alcohol since he almost drowned as a child and was nearly electrocuted by a power line, Mr. Panetti wore cowboy costumes to court, delivered rambling monologues, put himself on the witness stand and sought to subpoena the pope, Jesus and John F. Kennedy.

Panetti called himself as a witness. Well, sort of. . .

Taking on his defense, and calling himself as a witness, he argued that he had been taken over by an alter ego he called Sarge Ironhorse.

"Sarge boom boom," Mr. Panetti testified. "Sarge is gone. No more Sarge. Sonja and Birdie. Joe, Amanda lying kitchen, here, there blood. No, leave. Scott, remember exactly what Sarge did. Shot the lock. Walked in the kitchen. Sonja, where's Birdie? Sonja here."

You'd think the jury would be delighted to witness such an entertaining trial, but apparently not.

Jurors were clearly alienated and took little more than an hour to reject his insanity defense.

Here's where things get a little more interesting. Turns out he's on trial for murder. Should a guy this crazy -- and everybody agrees he's crazy --

The three-judge panel in Mr. Panetti's case acknowledged that he was mentally ill with what has been diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder and that he thus might lack a rational understanding of his fate. But the panel nonetheless ruled that he was competent to be executed because he was able to understand the stated basis for his execution.

David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who has met more than 75 death row inmates, visited Mr. Panetti at his lawyers' request. "Of all the people I have met on death row, he's the gold-medal-crazy winner," Professor Dow said.

be executed? Well, this is Texas, after all.

"In Texas," said Greg Wiercioch, a lawyer with the Texas Defender Service who has consulted with Mr. Panetti's defense, "if you cast a shadow on a sunny day, you're competent to be executed."

Actually, he's considered "sane" if he knows what he did, and he knows he can be executed for it.

Robert Blecker, a law professor at the New York Law School and a cautious supporter of the death penalty, said Mr. Panetti's execution could serve the goal of retribution.

"He knows what he did," Professor Blecker said. "He knows what the state is about to do to him, and why. For the retributivist, the past counts. It counts for us, and for us to be retributively satisfied, it must also count for him."

Prosecutors made the same point in a brief to the Fifth Circuit last year.

"All that is required to avoid the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment is that the petitioner factually understand the reason for this punishment," the prosecutors wrote.

So, by that standard, he's sane. "Some people" still find such an execution disquieting.

Some judges say the "miserable spectacle" of such executions simply offends humanity. Others say retribution is not served by executing someone who cannot understand why he is being put to death. Still others point to the inability of the insane to assist their lawyers in last-minute litigation. In the Middle Ages, it was thought that madness was its own punishment.

Oh well, it could be worse.

Executions of inmates who exhibited signs of madness are not unusual. In 1992, Arkansas executed Ricky Ray Rector not long after he put aside the dessert of his last meal to eat later.

The death penalty. Ya gotta love it!

(Oh, and a little postscript. This story appeared on page A18 in the New York Times -- buried well inside. But it was prominently displayed in between Page 1 stories on the Times website. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I found it interesting.)