The fate of capital punishment in the U.S. is something many have talked about over the last few years, as more and more countries around the globe have fully eliminated the death penalty for crimes - now that an execution has been stayed, what's the status?
More than half of the states of the union still comply with the death penalty - in all, capital punishment in the U.S. is applied in 32 states, including several Southern ones such as Georgia, Florida and Texas. In the latter state, a court of appeals has recently stayed one of the pending executions.
According to USA Today, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Scott Panetti, a Texas man convicted of murder in the death row, a stay in his execution barely eight hours before it was scheduled. Potentially, this could be an interesting decision in regards of capital punishment in the U.S.
Panetti's lawyers state that their client, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia a long time before he was even convicted, should not be condemned to the death penalty due to his illness, according to Al Jazeera. It's been documented that the man was hospitalized for this illness more than ten times, a fact that has put a lot of doubt around the current way in which capital punishment in the U.S. is being managed.
According to Latin Post, Panetti was first convicted for the murders Joe and Amanda Alvarado in 1995, and in the trial he refused legal representation and did so himself, turning the courthouse into something of a circus due to his proven mental illness: he wore a cowboy hat during the whole thing and, when it was time to call witnesses to the stand, he named Jesus, John F. Kennedy, the Pope and his alter ego.
Due to the fact that the convicted man is evidently suffering from severe illness, it has been discussed that the way this case has been handled could change things for capital punishment in the U.S., as it is unclear how many mentally disabled people have been sent to death row - though there's a rough estimate of 10 to 15 percent.
