Texans Obsession with Executing Mentally Ill Continues

No they didn't kill the cast of King of the Hill or the Governor formerly known as Dubya...

They executed ANOTHER convicted killer diagnosed as mentally ill despite a highly unusual recommendation from the state parole board that he be spared.

CNN

Kelsey Patterson, a 50-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, jabbered about being innocent and demanded his rights just before receiving a lethal injection Tuesday evening. His last words were a plea: "Give me my life back."

Gov. Rick Perry rejected the parole board's recommendation moments after the Supreme Court also refused to stay the execution, punishment for a double slaying in East Texas almost 12 years ago.

Patterson's execution renewed the legal quandary of whether it is proper to execute an inmate who is mentally ill after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. The high court has also said an inmate may not be executed if he doesn't know why he's on death row and the punishment he faces.

At least three mentally ill prisoners have been executed in Texas since the mental retardation ruling two years ago...

Oh, and he was black. Who would have guessed?

I may get flamed for this one, but if ANYONE kills another in cold blood how mentally stable are they to begin with?

Hey Rant, Here's one I agree with you on! The fact is, I'm opposed to the death penalty period. Texas seems to the complete philisophical opposite say to uh,...France.

Originally posted by CommonSense
Hey Rant, Here's one I agree with you on!

The fact is, I'm opposed to the death penalty period. Texas seems to the complete philisophical opposite say to uh,...France.

Good to know. And if it seems like I'm picking on Texas...I AM. I just don't get it at all. The sheer pride in being as backwards as possible. Makes me shudder.

I'm right there with you on their pride and arrogance. Perhaps the case that bothered me most down there was Andrea Yates who was clearly insane. Texans found her guillty of murder of three of the five kids. They didn't prosecute the other two at the same time just in case the jury said insane. Since it was all one crime, it should have been charged as one. In legal circles it's known as "two bites at the apple". In common parlance, it's a legal way to get around the constitutional provision against double jeopardy!

I'm not against the daeth penalty, perssay, but I still think it should be left to the victims families to decide the fate of the perp.

The mentally ill who commit heinous crimes should be locked up, yes, but they do not belong in jail with other hardened criminals. They deserve treatment, but in an institution, where they can get the help they need.

It seems odd to me to focus on the perp's STATE OF MIND. We cannot know what is going on inside the other person's head. We can judge overt acts, though.

I don't understand the concept that we should hold some people a different standard because their lawyer can show mental defect.

This attitude of jurisprudence is warped because it takes the focus off the deed, and makes it a question of what someone may or may not have been thinking. The vic is just as dead either way. We ought to be focused on the victim and not the peretrator.

But you want to give some perps a pass, based on the fact that they are more f'd up than the rest of the prison population?

For example, Andrea Yates: if she had killed five adults, would you say that she was not guilty by reason of insanity? Do her own children enjoy less protection under the law because there are hers, and they are minors, than if they had been strangers?

That whole argument of "I didn't mean to" should be left on the playground, and not made into a refuge for criminals.

One of the problems with western civilization is that we preserve and venerate the freaks and the sickos, while always increasing the pressure on the working woman or man.

Kelsey Patterson should have had medical treatment long before the double homicide. Is it the victim's fault or the victim's family that this person either refused or didn't get the proper medical treatment? No.. He killed two people and had shot several others. Justice was served

Kelsey Patterson