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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (632)	2/6/2004 9:50:34 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Respond to of 173976

Editorial: Madness in Texas Barring an unlikely last-minute intervention by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, or an only slightly more likely intervention by the federal courts, the state of Texas on Thursday will execute a man for the "crime" of mental illness. This is not exactly news. Texas and other Southern states that continue to engage in the barbaric practice of state-sponsored killing regularly execute people who suffer from mental retardation, mental illness and other conditions that civilized states and nations long ago recognized as requiring treatment and in most cases long-term separation from society -- not punishment by death. What distinguishes the execution set for Thursday is that the man slated to die in Texas is a Wisconsin native, Scott Louis Panetti, whose family continues to live here. A Poynette High School graduate, Panetti, 45, was sentenced to death for the September 1992 shooting deaths of Jose and Amanda Alvarado, his wife's parents, in Fredericksburg, Texas. That Panetti committed the crime is not in question. Nor is there much question about why he killed the Alvarados. Panetti suffered from severe and persistent mental illness for more than a dozen years prior to the killings. That illness caused him to hallucinate, to commit violent acts and to be hospitalized 11 times in the years before the murders. Had Panetti been accused of murder in Wisconsin, the likelihood is that he would have received a fair trial, been convicted and been institutionalized for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he was tried in Texas, a state where the courts are notoriously irresponsible -- even in cases where legal missteps can lead to wrongful deaths. In Panetti's case, the judge paid no heed to the accused man's history of mental illness and allowed Panetti to represent himself. What followed was a travesty of justice. Records show that Panetti rambled nonsensically and repeatedly engaged in bizarre behavior. A standby lawyer who monitored the trial says Panetti had no grasp of reality during the time when he was representing himself. He may not even have known that his life was at stake. Legal experts agree that Panetti was wrongfully convicted. So too does Sonja Alvarado, his former wife and the daughter of the slain couple. Alvarado says that she told the prosecutor in the case that she had pleaded with Fredericksburg police numerous times to take Panetti's guns from him because he was exhibiting signs of mental illness and refusing to take his medication. When the police would not remove Panetti's guns, Sonja Alvarado says, she took them to the police station in the hopes of keeping them away from him. The police returned Panetti's guns to him before the killings -- effectively placing the murder weapons in the hands of a man whose wife had repeatedly warned authorities that he was dangerous. When Sonja Alvarado tried to bring these details to the attention of prosecutors, and to clarify what had happened during the trial, she was told not to bring up the gross irresponsibility of the police in Fredericksburg. "I feel now that I was used on the stand so that I would cover up for the law enforcement mistakes," she says, adding that, "I know now that Scott is mentally ill and should not be put to death." Amnesty International shares that view. The human rights organization has issued an urgent appeal to its members worldwide, asking them to sign and circulate a petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare Panetti. (To learn more, visit takeaction.amnestyusa.org But more action is needed. Gov. Jim Doyle, a former Dane County district attorney and state attorney general, should speak out on behalf of a Wisconsin native who is about to be slain because of prosecutorial misconduct and judicial incompetence. It would be difficult for Texas officials to dismiss Doyle. As a veteran prosecutor, as an expert on issues involving mental illness and crime, and as the governor of a state that follows the rule of law, he can make it clear that it is legally and morally wrong to execute a mentally ill man who, by any accepted legal standard, did not receive a fair trial. Published: 11:45 AM 2/03/04 madison.com