HOME | MISSION STATEMENT | ROCK THE DEATH CLOCK | COURT TRANSCRIPTS | WHAT YOU CAN DO | AMNESTY'S URGENT ACTION APPEAL | PHOTOS OF SCOTT | FAMILY AND FRIENDS | MUSIC 4 SCOTT | LETTERS TO THE BOARD | LINKS | JAN 07 NEWS | OCT 2004 NEWS | STYLE BY VICTORIA | CONTACT US

Man suffers from mental illness, advocates say
By MEG KISSINGER
mkissinger@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 24, 2004

With less than two weeks left before Scott Panetti is to be executed in Texas, the Wisconsin native's case is attracting international attention from mental health advocates, death penalty opponents and Hollywood celebrities.

Family members fear it may be too late.

"I'm hoping for the best but fearing the worst," said Panetti's mother, Yvonne Panetti of Sheldon, Wis.

Panetti, 45, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 5 for the September 1992 shooting deaths of Jose and Amanda Alvarado, his wife's parents, in Fredericksburg, Texas.

A standout football player on Poynette High School's 1975 team, Panetti had been suffering from severe and persistent mental illness for more than a dozen years before the killings, causing him to hallucinate and act out violently. He had been hospitalized 11 times in the years leading up to the murders.

Amnesty International, a human rights organization that lobbies against the death penalty, 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.

So far, more than 1,100 people have signed, including Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun and death penalty opponent who was featured in the 1995 movie "Dead Man Walking"; Susan Sarandon, the actress who portrayed Prejean in the movie; Hollywood director Frank Oz; singer Hank Williams III; and members of various heavy metal bands.

Panetti's sister, Victoria, is a makeup artist in Hollywood and has been active in garnering support for her brother.

Civil rights advocates are trying to stop the execution, arguing that Panetti was mentally ill at the time he represented himself - at his own insistence - at his trial in 1995. His lawyer now says the judge in the case should not have allowed Panetti to represent himself.

The lawyer who served as Panetti's standby lawyer at the trial has subsequently testified that Panetti had no grasp of reality during the trial, that he tended to ramble nonsensically and that he intimidated the jury with his bizarre and threatening demeanor.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused last month to hear Panetti's case, setting in motion the date for his execution.

Michael Gross, the lawyer now representing Panetti, has filed a final appeal on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to execute someone who is mentally impaired. The trial judge refused the appeal without a hearing, and the matter is now before an appeals court in Texas.

Meanwhile, preparations are being made for Panetti's execution.

"He got a form the other day asking what he would like his last meal to be," Yvonne Panetti said. "And they want to know what he wants done with the body."

In his more than eight years on death row in Texas, Panetti has attracted the attention of international death penalty opponents, including people from Switzerland, Ireland and Australia who visit him regularly.

Panetti's case got a boost in 1999 when his former wife, Sonja Alvarado, the daughter of the victims, filed an affidavit saying that the prosecutor in the case ignored critical evidence that likely would have swayed a jury to give him a sentence of life in prison.

Texas authorities have declined requests to comment on the case.

Sonja Alvarado said she told the prosecutor that she had pleaded with the police in Fredericksburg several times to take Panetti's guns from him because he was exhibiting signs of mental illness and refusing to take his medication.

But the police would not remove Panetti's guns, she said. In fact, Alvarado took Panetti's guns to the police station in the hopes of keeping them away from him, but the police returned Panetti's guns to him a few days before the killings, she said.

"I told the DA I wanted to add more events as they occurred," Alvarado said in her affidavit. "He told me it was best to leave things as they were, and they would stick to the original statement given.

"I feel now that I was used on the stand so that I would cover up for the law enforcement mistakes and the sheriff of knowing Scott's mental illness for years, not to mention all the other reports that were not written out."

She concluded, "I know now that Scott is mentally ill and should not be put to death."

Yvonne Panetti says she and her husband, Jack, will be allowed to spend eight hours visiting their son behind a glass partition on the Monday and Tuesday before the execution, scheduled for Feb. 5 at 6 p.m.


From the Jan. 25, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

U.S. high court refuses to hear former state man's Texas murder case

By MEG KISSINGER
mkissinger@journalsentinel.com

Last Updated: Dec. 5, 2003

The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday refused to consider the appeal of Scott Panetti, a former Poynette High School football player, who is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Feb. 5 for killing his in-laws more than 11 years ago.

Panetti, 45, a Hayward native who grew up in Poynette, had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia and committed to a mental hospital more than 10 years before he shot and killed his wife's parents in Fredericksburg, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1992. He represented himself at trial in 1995 wearing a purple cowboy suit and subpoenaing John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ.

His case has drawn attention from Amnesty International, a human rights organization, because of claims that Panetti was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of the murders and that he should not have been allowed to represent himself at trial. He was featured in a Journal Sentinel story in 1999.

Three years after the trial, Sonja Alvarado, Panetti's former wife and the daughter of the victims, filed a petition saying that Panetti never should have been tried for the crimes because he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the killings.

Despite that, several appeals filed on Panetti's behalf have been denied. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recently scheduled Panetti's execution for Feb. 5. He is one of 12 inmates on the current list of prisoners to be executed. Last year, Texas executed 17 prisoners. The inmates on either side of Panetti's cell were executed this week, said his mother Yvonne Panetti.

Panetti has two avenues left to avoid execution, said his lawyer, Michael Gross of San Antonio. Gross said he will file a petition for clemency with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Should that fail, Gross will file an appeal on the grounds that it is against the 8th Amendment of the Constitution to execute a person who is mentally ill.

Panetti's parents, Jack Panetti, a construction worker, and Yvonne, a retired mail carrier, live in Jump River, Wis., during the summer.

Yvonne Panetti said she is frightened for her son.

"He did a terrible thing, but we was sick," she said. "Where is the compassion? Is this the best our society can do?"

Posted: Feb. 6, 2004

Justice reconsidered. More than four years ago, the Journal Sentinel's Meg Kissinger called attention to the case of Scott Panetti, a native of Poynette, Wis. Panetti murdered his wife's parents in a small Texas town, was convicted of the crime in 1995 and has been on death row ever since. Panetti had been hospitalized for severe mental illness nearly a dozen times prior to the killings. A judge permitted him to defend himself at trial, during which Panetti dressed in a purple cowboy outfit, behaved erratically, spoke nonsensically, tried to issue subpoenas to Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy and intimidated members of the jury. His case has received national and even international attention. This week, Panetti was given a 60-day stay by a federal court little more than 24 hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection. His lawyers argue that he shouldn't die because he cannot understand the reason for his execution. "He thinks he's being put to death for preaching the Gospel," one of them said. This case should never have gotten this far: Panetti originally should have been sentenced to life in prison without parole and given appropriate treatment for his mental illness. That's what the courts or Texas authorities should decide now.

From the Feb. 7, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Editorial: The case of Scott Panetti

From the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Feb. 2, 2004

More than four years ago, the Journal Sentinel's Meg Kissinger told this newspaper's readers about Scott Panetti, a Wisconsin native who killed his wife's parents in September 1992, stood trial for his crime in a Texas court and was sentenced to death. Appeals in the courts and by human rights groups such as Amnesty International went exactly nowhere. Now, barring a last-minute intervention by the federal courts or by the state's prison and parole authorities, Panetti, 45, is set to die by lethal injection on Thursday.

This is justice gone berserk. Panetti certainly committed the murders for which he was convicted, but he was just as certainly out of his mind when he did. He had been hospitalized for severe mental illness 11 times in the years prior to the murders. He hallucinated and behaved violently. On several occasions, his wife, Sonja Alvarado, pleaded with police in Fredericksburg, Texas, to take Panetti's guns away from him; they would not.

It gets worse. A Texas judge granted Panetti's request to represent himself. Panetti did so, says the lawyer assigned to assist him, but he had no sense of reality, rambling incoherently and even intimidating the jury with his bizarre and threatening manner.

This page does not support the death penalty; as any number of recent cases makes clear, there simply are too many examples of human fallibility in its administration. For its part, the U.S. Supreme Court has begun what amounts to a welcome re-examination of the use and abuse of the death penalty. Two years ago, the court banned executions of the mentally retarded, and last month, it agreed to decide whether it is constitutional to execute those who commit capital crimes when they are 16 or 17 years of age.
Severe mental illness - the kind that tormented Scott Panetti and caused him to do terrible things - is not part of that review; indeed, the court explicitly chose last month not to hear an appeal of Panetti's case. But at some point, we believe, the court must hear arguments whether the death penalty for those who have severe mental impairment violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

That won't help Panetti, unless authorities in Texas do what's right within the next 48 hours.

From the Feb. 3, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel