Court Stays Execution of Mentally Ill Inmate
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stayed this week’s scheduled execution of Steven Staley, a severely mentally ill inmate who was convicted of a 1989 robbery and murder at a Fort Worth Steak and Ale restaurant.
The stay came after defense lawyers argued that the state was violating Staley's constitutional rights by forcing him to take powerful anti-psychotic drugs so that he could be considered mentally competent for execution. On the heels of the stay, John Stickels, a lawyer for Staley, said that a psychologist on Monday spent three hours with the inmate at the Polunsky ...
Comments (10)
Robert Moorhead via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We can't feel good about killing you if you're not well.
Casey Bennett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
okay,,,so lock him away for the rest of his life. If he's truly mentally handicapped,,,,,he won't notice the difference between good and bad. Or they could just take him off his meds for a week or two,,,then execute him. Makes no difference to me how they handle this, as long as he never walks the streets again.
Kim Dembrosky via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't think it matters whether or not he is competent *now*....the question is whether or not he was competent at the time of the murders.
Alicea Fletcher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas has executed many other men who were forcibly medicated by the prosecutor to get them organized enough to stand trial. (In fact, the correctional system has been absorbing the mentally ill in one form or another since the Reagan administration, and more than half of the incarcerated have a mental illness.) What makes this different is that the prisoner's counsel actually won a stay. Whether the stay is a delay or becomes a commutation remains to be seen. But, like all things associated with the death penalty, I would prefer it was a life sentence. Unfortunately, I remember Kenneth MacDuff, and the then-corrupt Pardons and Paroles Boards, and I have mixed feelings about the life sentence alternative.
Dorina Lisson (ACADP)
Steven Staley has an IQ of 70 (normal is 100) and suffers from paranoid schizophenia. By medical definition Staley has a serious mental illness. If Staley was mentally ill when he committed the crime, then he was obviously mentally unstable/incompetent to stand trial and should never have been sentenced to death.
On the otherhand, if Staley became seriously mentally ill while in prison, or has been mentally mistreated while in prison, or has been in solitary confinement for many years, this causes the most sane person to develop a variety of mental illnesses. This death-row-aquired insanity has been well-documented and is known as 'death row syndrome'.
Now, consider whether giving a powerful mind-altering drug/s that can make someone behave sanely so he can be executed ... should it be obligatory? Why should this be done unless at the request of the prisoner and with his approval? The important issue in this article seems to be; Should authorities be allowed to forcefully administer such a drug/s to a prisoner?
If Staley has voluntarily decided to have the drug/s administered, then the side-effects have left Staley with extreme sedation and zombie-like effects - medically declaring him as mentally insane/unstable/incompetent to be executed, because he is not behaving in a eligible sane manner for extermination.
Everybody concerned over this case have srewed up badly ... it is seen as a shameful power-struggle of psychological mind-games of who's right and who's wrong. Playing revengeful games with human beings is not a sign of a modern democratic humane society and neither is legally executing mentally ill people a sign of a decent civilized society.
Audrey Fisher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Kim: If the prosecuter had to medicate the individual in order to "make him appear sane" should be the first clue. Was he medicated at the time of the crime is a good question, but that fact is omitted (or perhaps unknown). IMO: it's like giving an drug addict drugs in order to not allow the jury to see the consequences of withdrawl. Yeah, probably bad example, but same idea.
gypsy314 ne
Anyone but Obama the fraud and his liar democrat friends!
David Spratt
Equality for all. So many whine for equal treatment,,,,, unless it is to their detriment,,,, then it becomes unfair. Since when do right thinking people kill other people for no reason anyway? It is a bogus argument to claim a murderer in mentally unstable and therefore unfit to recieve his punishment. It kinda goes without saying that you are not mentally right if you go around robbing and killing people to begin with.
Marva Bliss Lanier via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I lived in the DFW area and remember this robbery and murder. Had a friend who worked at at Steak & Ale but thankfully was not working that evening.
Natalie Cobain
This man's sentence should be commuted to life in prison immediately. Abolish the death penalty.