Thomas Calls Holding ‘Half-baked’

A federal district court will have to sort out the details of yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the case of a mentally ill death-row inmate.

The court will have to consider whether Scott Panetti, who thinks the state of Texas wants to executive him for preaching the gospel, has a rational understanding of the reason for his execution. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said lower courts had failed to provide due process when they considered Patnetti’s claim, ABAJournal.com reported yesterday.

"A prisoner's awareness of the state's rationale for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it," he wrote.

The decision also addressed procedural issues, saying Panetti was permitted to raise the claim past the deadline for constitutional appeals, the Washington Post reports. Panetti's claim had ripened when the execution date was set, the court said.

The decision could affect a small number of cases in other states in which lawyers argue mental illness clouds death-row inmates’ understanding of the reason for their execution, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports.

But Justice Clarence Thomas thinks the ruling will also have a big impact on the federal court trying to interpret it, the New York Times reports. He called the majority decision “a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard for the district court to work out.”