Perry V. Louisiana

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

In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of several clients whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Some had intellectual disabilities, others were dealing with the aftermath of severe trauma, but each one was changed in some way. Whether their reasoning had been altered or they simply did not understand what was happening, any crime they committed was closely tied to their mental state. Logically, a major detail like the defendant’s thought process and motivation behind the crime would have been discussed, but this was not the case. Any evidence of their illness was forgotten about or outright ignored by both the prosecution and the defense. When considering each crime with their mental illness in mind, sentencing the defendant to death row is needlessly cruel. Their avoidance of the topic shows a complete failure to understand how important it can be to an individual’s decision-making abilities.

Perry v. New Hampshire 10-8974 US (2012). This case is before the Supreme Court of the United States of America following an appeal by the defendant, Barion Perry.

An unfortunate reality in today’s society is the gross overrepresentation of persons with mental illness in the criminal justice system. According to Teplin (1984), persons with mental illness have been found to be almost twice as likely as individuals without any known mental illness to be arrested for their behavior in similar situations. Furthermore, several other studies have even shown that roughly half of all persons with a mental illness have been arrested at least once in their lifetime (Solomon & Draine, 1995; Walsh & Bricourt, 2003). Although these statistics seem to further support the common belief among many citizens that mentally ill persons are dangerous criminals, research indicates that the mentally ill are more often arrested for nonviolent minor charges (Cuellar, Snowden, & Ewing, 2007). Not surprisingly, a considerable portion of individuals within the criminal justice population have a diagnosable mental illness. According to Ditton (1999), 7% of federal inmates, 16% of state inmates, and 16% of jail inmates have a mental illness. These percentages may be inflated because persons with mental illness tend to spend longer periods of time in custody than those without a mental illness. Perhaps the greatest indication of the brokenness of the system is the fact that there are more mentally ill persons in jails and prisons today than in public psychiatric hospitals (Lamb& Bachrach, 2001). In fact, according to the

The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.

Olmstead vs. L.C., which is the case that led to the Olmstead Decision, is considered to be one of the most important civil rights cases during the 20th century (Zubritsky, Mullahy, Allen, & Alfano, 2006). The Olmstead Decision was put into place after two women with a diagnosis of mental illness and developmental disability were voluntarily placed in a psychiatric facility and remained institutionalized for years. Even after efforts made by the women’s staff members to move them into a community setting, they were not moved until the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in the Olmstead case (Cashmore, 2014).

The case of Mills v. Rogers has a significant importance in virtue of the human, civil and constitutional rights of the patients who are hospitalized at mental institutions. Despite the fact whether the patient was there voluntarily or contrary, Rogers believed that the institutions should respect the patient’s decision when it involved antipsychotic drug treatments. Rubie Rogers was a 36-year old black woman who voluntarily institutionalized herself at the Boston State Hospital (BSH). Rogers suffered from hallucinations along with delusions and acquired a history of thought disorder such as violent behavior. Before Mills v. Rogers, a prior lawsuit was filed.

The Supreme Court has deemed it acceptable to use the death penalty in certain situations. Many states have a problem with this punishment although it was upheld as fair application in some instances by a court that is above theirs. In applying this punishment, there is due process to ensure that no innocent citizen should be wrongfully accused for a crime that they didn’t commit. As in any court case that ends up punishing someone, due process is an important and death penalty is a viable punishment as any other.

In the case of Kennedy V. Louisiana Patrick Kennedy was found guilty in raping and sodomizing his eight-year-old stepdaughter in a Louisiana courtroom. Mr. Kennedy refused to plead guilty and stated the crime was committed by two young boys from the neighborhood. He was convicted sentenced to death 2003. On March 2nd 1988 the victim sustained severe injuries; the injuries required emergency surgery because the rape was so brutal. Louisiana law authorized capital punishment for the rape of a child twelve years and younger. Mr. Patrick Kennedy challenged his sentence under the eighteen amendments as cruel and unusual punishment. The Louisiana Supreme Court declined the challenged that the death penalty was not too harsh for such a wicked crime. In a Supreme Court decision Coker v. Georgia 1977 the United States Supreme Court concluded that capital punishment for rape of an adult women was not applicable if the victim is a child and if it did not result or contemplated in result of a death. The court discussed a number of Supreme Court case related to child vulnerability and the death penalty. In the case of Roper V. Simmons the court ruled that the death penalty could not be applied to a person if the crime was committed when they were under the age of eighteen. In another case, Atkins V. Virginia the death penalty could not be placed on a mentally ill person. The petitioner Kennedy argued that in all these cases they do not establish conformity.

The Founding Fathers tried to protect citizen’s rights to religious choice and attempted to keep the government form religious interference. The purpose was not to disallow religion but to give the people a choice of whom and where to worship. Today, the views are not the same. Freedom of religion is being interpreted as freedom of religion as long as it is acceptable with everyone else. The Founding Fathers also wanted separation of church and state to protect the church from government interference. The concept has now become removal of religion from all aspects of government. The cases of Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU are two prime examples, both with different results.

“On Jan 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the lethal three-Drug cocktail used in most U.S executions. In a perfect world, perhaps, the government wouldn’t wait 30 years to determine whether an execution method makes sense” Von Drehle, D (2008). So many Americans are being sentenced to death, and we stand back and wonder how this can be happening. It happens because we have criminals and so we will continue to have crime, and instead of trying to figure out the who, what, where and why we would rather put them to death. The reasons to abolish the death penalty go on and on, what about the

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

One in every seventeen people in America suffers from a mental disorder. These disorders inhibit the afflicted person from functioning properly and coping normally with daily life. Many afflicted with a psychological disorder do not exhibit obvious symptoms, as medical advancements have made it possible for these disorders to be suppressed or even nonexistent. Today, however, harsh stigmas exist that unfairly categorize those with a mental illness as violent, unfriendly, and abnormal. The media and federal government are culprits in fabricating the unrealistic depictions of mental disability that define the portrayal of those who are mentally or psychologically disadvantaged.

An Impassioned Debate: An overview of the death penalty in America depicts the facts about the eighth amendment. The eighth amendment is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments (Masci 1). There are two significant cases that have inflamed the debate over the capital punishment, The Baze v. Reese case, and the Kennedy v. Louisiana case. The first case reveals the strong debate that the execution by lethal injection is inhuman and in violation of the eight amendment. The second case inflamed the

Forensic science has been around for centuries, although not in the form we are familiar with today. Throughout history, we see use of forensic toxicology in ancient Greece poisoning deaths and the use of fingerprinting as identification in ancient China. We can look back and see the development of a system used by French police in the 1870’s called anthropometry. This system, developed by Alphonse Bertillon, used a person’s physical measurements at the time of arrest as a way to identify them in future crimes. As science evolved in society, so did the area of forensics and the techniques used in identifying suspects and reconstructing crime scenes. It wasn’t until 1984 that DNA was used as a form of identification. Since its inception, DNA has become a focal point for jurors and many cases are not even tried in court due to lack of DNA evidence. Over the past 32 years that DNA identification has been implemented, many mistakes have been made in the collecting and handling processes of this delicate evidence. One of the most publicized cases in which the forensic protocols were completely lacking or even disregarded was the double homicide of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman in which Orenthal J. Simpson was tried and acquitted.