Mental Illness Cases

(Lamar 34). Many in fovor of the death penalty feel that if a sentence of death is handed

Harper, the law allows state officials to medicate mentally ill inmates against their will if they are dangerous to others or themselves. After the Court orders, State authorities reviewed medical records of Mr. Singleton to see if he is competent enough to be executed and they also found out that Mr. Singleton is voluntarily cooperating to the medical treatment and completely aware of the situation and circumstances. According to the Court, Mr. Singleton said, “I don’t want it to seem like I’m running a game, but I have a case going involving forced medication.” Mr. Singleton also requested that he does not want his lawyer not to do anything or come in a way in his execution. I strongly opposed that it took about 24 years for State authorities and Courts to execute him. As we know that Mr. Singleton was diagnosed with schizophrenia/psychosis after he committed murder and was in jail. However, when he entered Ms. York’s grocery store for robbery and according to the records, Mr. Singleton told Ms. York that he is here to only rob her store and if she makes it hard for him then he will take this to the next level which means murder. So it was clear that while Mr. Singleton was committing murder and robbery, he was in his senses and knew what he was doing. Even though what he said and did while in the store, was not even close to any mental illness signs and

But then, several days later one of the psychiatrists revised their medical opinion. Because he was not insane, the case would go on. The state of Georgia charged him with murder and issued the death penalty. This was because Georgia state law stated that any form of murder issued with a felony was punishable by death. Furman’s attorneys knew that the murder had been accidental and that Furman was genuinely sorry for the action he had caused, so they decide there was only one other path out: The Supreme Court.

Four years prior to this case, the Supreme Court ruled that “the Constitution bars states from executing prisoners who are insane.” Then a few moments later after an inmate submitted an appeal on death row, The Supreme Court agreed “to decide the further question of whether a state can, in effect, make a prisoner eligible for execution by administering anti-psychotic medication against his will.” In the Perry v Louisiana case, Keith B. Nordyre argues for Perry’s rights, whether or not they

Anthony Graves was living on death row for almost two decades while being in solitary confinement. While he was proven un-guilty of murder he still has the punishment of eighteen years of living while being mentally and physically dead. After Mr. Graves was let out of prison, he still has to rethink about almost being killed because of a prosecutor that didn’t want to lose her case. How unprofessional could that be, letting someone rot in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, while the prosecutor knew of doubts, but went along like he didn’t hear it. The cost of one’s life is more than all of the money in the world, because once someone is lethally injected, no one can bring them back. Now I am starting to wonder about the death penalty and questioning myself is it fit for the worst of crimes for is it not fit at all. Kerry Max Cook was a former death row inmate that had conversations with Robert Earl Carter, "Anthony, I really believe, is innocent. I'm stunned that an innocent person is this close to execution (Rice,2005), was stated by former death row inmate Cook, that was let off for being proven

“A young African-American man shot and killed an Alabama police officer in 1981. He was examined in jail and found to be psychotic then and at the time of the killing. In 1982 the Alabama Lunacy Commission found him competent to stand trial, and he was sentenced to death. He was consistently described as psychotic in prison records; but another state forensic evaluation in 1988 again found him competent. After reviewing his records and examining him, I concluded that he had been psychotic when he killed the officer and was psychotic still. A federal appeals court judge ruled that the original trial had been unconstitutional because the defendant was not competent at the time. The prosecutor declined to retry him, and he was sent to a state mental hospital.”(Beck)

Terry Clark was the only prisoner on death row to be executed before the penalty repeal in 2009. In 1987, a jury found Clark guilty after hearing gruesome testimony that he abducted, raped, and shot his young victim three times in the head before he buried her body in a shallow grave on his brother’s ranch. Unsurprisingly, Clark filed an appeal with the New Mexico Supreme Court after the lower court’s ruling and sentencing. In State v. Clark, 772 P.2d 322 (1989), the court carefully considered Clarks many claims of trial misconduct.

Mr. Charles Laverne Singleton known as the “convicted murder” in a Arkansas prison was immediately put onto the death row after murdering Mary Lou York; an Hamburg store owner on June 1, 1979. After being incarcerated for some time many started to notice that Singleton had a sufficient amount of problems going on in his life. One the biggest issues that made his murder case very significant to this day is suffering from a disorder known as “Schizophrenia” while being on the death row list. There were lots of reports stating that Singleton was being forced by correctional officers in the Arkansas prison to take antipsychotic drugs to make him sane enough to execute. The case became so important that the matter had to be placed into the U.S. Supreme Court hands to be handled further. During, the year of 1986 Supreme Court decided that the decision of the execution style on this young man was unconstitutional due to him being mentally insane. The argument provided in Mr. Singleton case has compelled many emotions within many individuals such as myself; to decide on the decision of whether singleton should receive the execution or not.

In 2014, convicted killer Joseph R. Wood III was executed by lethal injection. The execution took nearly two hours in which Woods reportedly “gasped and struggled to breath.” Inmates at an Oklahoma prison believed that the drug was unconstitutional because it can be associated with cruel and unusual punishment. The prisoners took the issue to federal court. On June 29, 2015 the Supreme Court ruled against three death row inmates in Oklahoma who wanted to remove the specific execution drug which could risk the cause of excruciating pain. This case can be directly linked to the 8th Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment. 5 out of the 9 judges believed that the drug did work in knocking the guilty unconscious in the first stages of the

Death penalty is given to those people whose punishment is execution carried out by the government. Capital punishment has been a controversial issue in American history. There are many conflicting issues as to when to say capital punishment is right or wrong. The execution of Charles Singleton, places a different aspect whether capital punishment was ethical or unethical in Singleton’s case. Serving his time in prison, Charles Singleton was diagnosed with schizophrenia and became a victim of insanity. The state of Arkansans was granted permission to execute Singleton by administering antipsychotic drugs to make him mentally stable enough to where he is no longer insane. By giving those medications, he was considered sane and the execution

This is a reliable source because we used this website in class to identify and utilize Supreme Court cases to use in our paper and because the website itself belongs to IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. The case was brought to the Supreme Court because Daryl Renard Atkins was convicted of abduction, armed robbery, and capital murder. However, the forensic psychologist who relied on one witness account, testified that Atkins was mentally unstable and therefore could not be sentenced to death. After a second sentencing hearing (because the first had used a misleading verdict form), the jury once again sentenced him to death and it wasn’t until the Penry v. Lynaugh case when lawmakers agreed that the mentally handicapped could not be sentenced

On February 11, 2003, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State of Arkansas could force death row prisoner Charles Laverne Singleton to take antipsychotic drugs to make him sane enough to execute. Singleton was to be executed for felony capital murder but became insane while in prison. "Medicine is supposed to heal people, not prepare them for execution; a law that asks doctors to make people well so that the government can kill them is an absurd law," said David Kaczynski, the executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty

The Supreme Court would responded to this case and consider a habeas relief to the prisoner if the state court was deemed unreasonable under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDP.) The Appeals court would take Whites case to the supreme court in violation of his 6th and 14th amendments on claims of how juror 638 was excused from the jury. For the Supreme Court to side with the appeals court, then White would have to prove that there was an error beyond any doubt in removing juror 638. During the review of juror 638 in the trial of white vs. wheeler, the trial judge removed 638 because of his inconsistency in his viewpoints on the death penalty. The judge confirmed this when reviewing his testimony on whether he could realistically

But, according to the Constitution the Eighth Amendment prevents punishments that are cruel and unusual. The Amendment does not specify to whom should receive the cruel punishment. The types of cruel and unusual punishment that was meant at the time were strangled, branded, burned, or being locked in stocks. Those who support the punishment would say that injections would be an acceptable option. In addition, supporters contend that the drugs that are used are safe and effective. Be that as it may, botch executions are evidence that lethal injection drugs are a type of cruel and unusual punishment. According to Teresa Zimmers, a medicine molecular biologist who has studied lethal injections, claims that potassium chloride, a drug used to stop a prisoner's heart, is extremely painful (Mooney 72). Zimmers also claims that the injections have not been tested sufficient enough to be sure that their is no cause of suffering or pain (Mooney 73). In 2009 a row inmate, Romell Broom suffered during his lethal injection. It took prison officials eighteen attempts to find a vein to conduct the execution properly. For over two hours these officials failed to execute Romell Broom (Mooney 73). Eventually Ted Strickland, the governor of Ohio at the time, requested the execution to stop and granted Broom another week. The execution of Dennis McGuire was a slow death, taking

Furman went to the supreme court pleading that the death penalty is unconstitutionally based of the eighth amendment and the fourteenth amendment. The eighth amendment states that “Excessive bail shall not be required,