Court Opinion

ID: 9488001
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:33:22.484335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:37.631489
License: Public Domain

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Tomorrow morning Alabama plans to execute Varnall Weeks, a delusional paranoid schizophrenic whom two psychologists and one psychiatrist, one of whom was state appointed, found to be severely mentally ill and whom the state court acknowledged meets the general definition of insanity.1 The majority resolves grave and complex legal issues in Weeks’s case without oral argument, on less than full briefing, and after a minimal period of contemplation. Because I believe the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on executing the insane requires more than a cursory review, I would grant Weeks’s requests for a certificate of probable cause and for a stay to allow for oral argument.
Under Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3394, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983) (citations omitted), a certificate of probable cause may be granted if a petitioner makes “a substantial showing of the denial of [a] federal right.” A petitioner “must demonstrate that the issues are debatable among jurists of reason; that a court could resolve the issues [in a different matter]; or that the questions are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Id. at 893 n. 4, 103 S.Ct.' at 3394-95 n. 4 (citations omitted). If a certificate of probable cause is issued, “petitioner must then be afforded an opportunity to address the merits, and the court of appeals is obligated to decide the merits of the appeal.” Id. at 893,103 S.Ct. at 3395. If necessary to prevent mootness, a court of appeals should stay the execution pending resolution on the merits. Id. at 893-94, 103 S.Ct. at 3395.
In my view, Weeks has made the requisite showing as to his competency claim. In Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 409-10, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 2602, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986), the Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from carrying out a sentence of death upon a prisoner who is insane.” The Ford majority, however, did not define insanity.2 The state court judge in this ease acknowledged that Ford “did not articulate a standard to determine whether a person is competent to be executed.”
Since Ford, courts have adopted different legal definitions of Eighth Amendment mental competency for execution. Compare Rector v. Clark, 923 F.2d 570, 572 (8th Cir.) (examining “whether petitioner understands that he is to be punished by execution” and “whether petitioner understands why he is being punished”), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1239, 111 S.Ct. 2872, 115 L.Ed.2d 1038 (1991) with Lowenfield v. Butler, 843 F.2d 183, 187 (5th Cir.) (evaluating whether petitioner is “unaware that he is about to be put to death as a result of his earlier conviction and sentence for murder”), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1014, 108 S.Ct. 1487, 99 L.Ed.2d 714 (1988) and Martin v. Dugger, 686 F.Supp. 1523, 1566-73 (S.D.Fla.1988) (holding that a “prisoner need only appreciate the connection between the crime and its punishment” in order to be executed), affd on other grounds, 891 F.2d 807 (11th Cir.1989). The Eleventh Circuit *1575addresses this issue for the first time in this case. That we might do so without a thorough, reasoned determination of the meaning of insanity under the Eighth Amendment is particularly troubling.3
The rule against executing the insane has roots in the common law. Legal writers like Coke recognized that “the execution of ... a mad man ... should be a miserable spectacle, both against Law, and of extreme inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others.” 3 E. Coke, Institutes 6. Without oral argument, we cannot be sure to avoid such a miserable spectacle in this case. Accordingly, I dissent.4

. In his plurality opinion, Justice Marshall sug- ■ gested that it “[i]s no less abhorrent today than it . has been for centuries to exact in penance the life of one whose mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications.” Ford, 477 U.S. at 417, 106 S.Ct. at 2606. Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion, stated that he “would hold 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. at 2608 (Powell, J., concurring).

. We are confronted with another issue of first impression regarding the deference we owe to the state court's determination that Weeks is competent to be executed. Because of our conflicting circuit precedent on similar issues, I also would grant oral argument regarding the deference to he given to the trial court’s competency determination. See United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364 (11th Cir.1993).

. I concur in the determination of the majority that Weeks’s claims other than the competency issue are properly denied.