Scott Louis Panetti v. Nathaniel Quarterman, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division (551 U.S. 930)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 28, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 551 U.S. 930 · 127 S. Ct. 2842
- Decided
- June 28, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. “[T]he Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who is insane.” Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399, 409-410 (1986). The prohibition applies despite a prisoner’s earlier competency to be held responsible for committing a crime and to be tried for it. Prior findings of competency do not foreclose a prisoner from proving he is incompetent to be executed because of his present mental condition. Under Ford, oncé a prisoner makes the requisite preliminary showing that his current mental state would bar his execution, the Eighth Amendment, applicable to the States under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, entitles him to an adjudication to determine his condition. These determinations are governed by the substantive federal baseline for competency set down in Ford. Scott Louis Panetti, referred to here as petitioner, was convicted and sentenced to death in a Texas state court. After the state trial court set an execution date, petitioner made a substantial showing he was not competent to be executed. The state court rejected his claim of incompeteney on the merits. Filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, petitioner claimed again that his mental condition barred his execution; that the Eighth…
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