Opinion ID: 1057585
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legal Standards of Competency

Text: The Eighth Amendment prohibits the State from inflicting the penalty of death upon a prisoner who is insane. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 410, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986). [7] The Court in Ford did not define insanity, however, instead leaving to each state the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon its execution of sentences. Id. at 416-17, 106 S.Ct. 2595 (plurality opinion). In a concurring opinion in Ford, Justice Powell declared that the Eighth Amendment forbids the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it. Id. at 422, 106 S.Ct. 2595 (Powell, J., concurring). Justice Powell's concurring opinion in Ford constituted the narrowest grounds for the Court's judgment. See Coe, 17 S.W.3d at 209 (citing Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193, 97 S.Ct. 990, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977)). As a result, many states and many lower federal courts adopted and applied Justice Powell's formulation of the standard of competence to be executed. Likewise, in 1999, this Court adopted the standard enunciated by Justice Powell and held that under Tennessee law a prisoner is not competent to be executed if the prisoner lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and the reason for it. Van Tran, 6 S.W.3d at 266; accord Coe, 17 S.W.3d at 219. In Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 127 S.Ct. 2842, 168 L.Ed.2d 662 (2007), the United States Supreme Court had an opportunity to revisit the issue of the standard for competence to be executed. Scott Panetti, who had killed his estranged wife's parents in front of his wife and their daughter, had a lengthy history of mental illness. Id. at 935-36, 127 S.Ct. 2842. He filed a petition in state court arguing that he was not competent to be executed. Id. at 938, 127 S.Ct. 2842. His attorneys produced expert proof that, while Mr. Panetti understood that he would be executed and claimed to understand that the state wanted to execute him for the murders he committed, his mental illness had resulted in a delusion causing him to believe that the stated reason for his execution was a sham, and that the state actually intended to kill him to stop his preaching. Id. at 954-55, 127 S.Ct. 2842. [8] The state courts denied his claim, and he sought federal habeas corpus relief. The federal district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied relief, explaining that a prisoner is competent to be executed so long as the prisoner knows the fact of his impending execution and the factual predicate for the execution. Id. at 941-42, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The United States Supreme Court granted review and considered, as relevant to this appeal, the following question: whether the Eighth Amendment permits the execution of a prisoner whose mental illness deprives him of `the mental capacity to understand that [he] is being executed as a punishment for a crime.' Id. at 954, 127 S.Ct. 2842. In discussing this issue, the Court explained that the four-justice plurality in Ford discussed the substantive standard at a high level of generality; and Justice Powell wrote only for himself when he articulated more specific criteria. Panetti, 551 U.S. at 957, 127 S.Ct. 2842. While the Court in Panetti again declined to set down a rule governing all competency determinations, id. at 960-61, 127 S.Ct. 2842, the Court rejected the approach applied by the lower courts which treated a prisoner's delusional belief system as irrelevant so long as the prisoner also knows that the State has identified his crimes as the reason for his execution. Id. at 958, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court emphasized that, [w]hether Ford's inquiry into competency is formulated as a question of the prisoner's ability to `comprehen[d] the reasons' for his punishment or as a determination into whether he is `unaware of... why [he is] to suffer it,' id. at 959, 127 S.Ct. 2842, the Ford opinions nowhere indicate that delusions are irrelevant to `comprehen[sion]' or `aware[ness]' if they so impair the prisoner's concept of reality that he cannot reach a rational understanding of the reason for the execution, id. at 958, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court further explained that [a] prisoner's awareness of the State's rationale for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it. Id. at 959, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court conceded that a concept like rational understanding is difficult to define. Id. In attempting to clarify the concept, the Panetti Court stated: [W]e must not ignore the concern that some prisoners, whose cases are not implicated by this decision, will fail to understand why they are to be punished on account of reasons other than those stemming from a severe mental illness. The mental state requisite for competence to suffer capital punishment neither presumes nor requires a person who would be considered normal, or even rational, in a layperson's understanding of those terms. Someone who is condemned to death for an atrocious murder may be so callous as to be unrepentant; so self-centered and devoid of compassion as to lack all sense of guilt; so adept in transferring blame to others as to be considered, at least in the colloquial sense, to be out of touch with reality. Those states of mind, even if extreme compared to the criminal population at large, are not what petitioner contends lie at the threshold of a competence inquiry. The beginning of doubt about competence in a case like petitioner's is not a misanthropic personality or an amoral character. It is a psychotic disorder. Id. at 959-960, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court also emphasized that the goal of retribution is served only if the prisoner is able to recognize the severity of the offense and the objective of community vindication. Id. at 958, 127 S.Ct. 2842. This goal is undercut, the Panetti Court explained, when the prisoner suffers from a form of mental illness that distorts his or her mental state to the point that the prisoner's awareness of the crime and punishment has little or no relation to the understanding of those concepts shared by the community as a whole. Id. at 958-59, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court emphasized that [g]ross delusions stemming from a severe mental disorder may put an awareness of a link between a crime and its punishment in a context so far removed from reality that the punishment can serve no proper purpose. Id. at 960, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court concluded that it is error to derive from Ford, and the substantive standard for incompetency its opinions broadly identify, a strict test for competency that treats delusional beliefs as irrelevant once the prisoner is aware the State has identified the link between his crime and the punishment to be inflicted. Id. The astute trial judge in this case correctly recognized that the competency standard adopted in Van Tran and applied in Coe must be construed and applied consistently with the foregoing principles enunciated in Panetti. The State's contention in this Court that Panetti is inapplicable and does not affect the standard announced in Van Tran is without merit. As Mr. Irick points out in his reply brief, the United States Supreme Court defines the parameters of the Eighth Amendment, and we are bound by Panetti, the Court's latest pronouncement on the standard of competence for execution. Any portions of Van Tran or Coe that can be read as inconsistent with Panetti are hereby renounced as obsolete. [9] In our view, Panetti teaches that the test for competence to be executed requires a prisoner to have a rational understanding of his conviction, his impending execution, and the relationship between the two. Billiot v. Epps, 671 F.Supp.2d 840, 853 (S.D.Miss.2009). See also Panetti v. Quarterman, No. A-04-CA-042-SS, 2008 WL 2338498, at  (W.D.Tex. Mar. 26, 2008) (opinion after remand from the United States Supreme Court). Stated differently, under Panetti, execution is not forbidden so long as the evidence shows that the prisoner does not question the reality of the crime or the reality of his punishment by the State for the crime committed. See Overstreet v. State, 877 N.E.2d 144, 174 (Ind.2007). The Court's decision in Panetti also emphasizes that a prisoner seeking to establish incompetency may not be foreclosed from offering proof to show that a mental illness obstructs his rational understanding of his conviction, his impending execution, and the relationship between the two. As previously explained, the trial court in this case correctly identified and applied the governing legal principles announced in Panetti and Van Tran. Therefore, we must now consider whether the evidence preponderates against the trial court's finding that Mr. Irick is presently competent to be executed.