Last night, Arkansas executed Charles Singleton, a profoundly mentally ill man, who was given antipsychotic medication in order to render him competent to be executed.
http://tinyurl.com/3edzx His attorneys had argued that Arkansas could not constitutionally forcibly drug Charles so that the state could kill him. A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and set aside the death sentence, meaning that Singleton would serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. Arkansas appealed, and a divided full 8th Circuit Court lifted the stay of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene, although the Court has never addressed the specific issue of the constitutionality of a state drugging a person in order to render competency for execution.
In contrast, at least two states - South Carolina and Louisiana -- have addressed this issue and found that the government does NOT have a right to create synthetic competency for purposes of killing an individual. Here's what the Louisiana Supreme Court had to say about this cruel and unusual practice:
[After receiving antipsychotics, the person] will be forced to linger for a protracted period, stripped of the vestiges of humanity and dignity usually reserved to death row inmates, with the growing awareness that the state is converting his own mind and body into a vehicle for his execution.
. . . .
Unlike sane death row prisoners who retain dignity until the end, Perry would . . . experience an indefinite period of indignity, anxiety and fear, assimilating unwanted antipsychotic drugs into his brain and body against his will at the risk of harmful and fatal side effects. . . . These circumstances . . . [would] degrade human dignity and reach a sum in which there is something inhuman, barbarous, and analogous to torture.
Talkleft has more here http://tinyurl.com/39s35.
The death penalty has been a highly politicized criminal justice issue in past elections. We are all aware of where Bush stands on the issue -- many people around the world refer to him as the Texecutioner. When the subject came up in a 2000 debate, both Bush and Gore said the death penalty was necessary as a deterrent (although numerous studies show that it is not). It was Bush's daddy who, in a 1988 debate asked Dukakis how he would react if his wife was raped and murdered. Dukakis unemotionally reiterated his opposition to the death penalty.
Dean and Clark are both in favor of the death penalty but their websites indicate some interest in reform, including the Innocence Protection Act, and a study of the process as a recognition of the large number of innocent people who have been freed from death row in the last decade. I don't know the position of either candidate on executing the profoundly mentally ill.
Clark is doing an online Q&A late this afternoon with a dozen political bloggers. I would be interested to know what his position on the Singleton execution is. Clark is from Arkansas, the site of yesterday's execution. Republican Governor Mike Huckabee (born in Hope, by the way) refused to grant a pardon to Singleton. If Clark is elected President he could face this issue since our federal death row is growing as Congress keeps federalizing numerous crimes.
I'm particularly interested in how Clark would answer this question because he's perceived as the Clinton candidate and Clinton's position on the death penalty and criminal justice issues tended to mirror or outflank the Republican position. Clinton came off the campaign trail in 1992 to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a lobotomized man who set aside a piece of pie from his last meal to eat later (there was no later of course). Under Clinton we got the abominable 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the federal death penalty resource centers defending death row inmates were shut down. Although Clinton may have been morally, religiously, or personally comfortable with executing people, even the severely mentally ill, I always felt that it was a deliberate political decision.
So are our current Dem candidates going to go that route or has the mood of the country changed enough, with polls showing a decrease in death penalty support, that they will take a more progressive stance? I'm also interested in how Dean and the other Dem candidates would answer this question but it seems there is an opportunity today. What do you think our candidate's position should be? For brevity's sake, in the poll answers "smi" is an abbreviation for "severely mentally ill."