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Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling that criminal defendants sentenced to death may not be executed if they do not understand the reason for their imminent execution, and that once the state has set an execution date death-row inmates may litigate their competency to be executed in habeas corpus proceedings. [1]
Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that set the standard for involuntary commitment for treatment by raising the burden of proof required to commit persons for psychiatric treatment from the usual civil burden of proof of "preponderance of the evidence" to "clear and convincing evidence".
United States federal laws governing offenders with mental diseases or defects (18 U.S.C. §§ 4241–4248) provide for the evaluation and handling of defendants who are suspected of having mental diseases or defects. The laws were completely revamped by the Insanity Defense Reform Act in the wake of the John Hinckley Jr. verdict.
Every year just over 5% of all felony defendants, over 60,000 people are evaluated for competency to stand trial(CST). Of those evaluated, only around 11-30% are deemed incompetent. [9] Competency to stand trial depends only on the defendants current mental state and is entirely separate from their mental state at the time of the crime.
A Texas death row inmate with a long history of mental illness, and who tried to call Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy as trial witnesses, is not competent to be executed, a federal judge ruled.
However, there must be a formal institutional hearing, the prisoner must be found to be dangerous to himself or others, the prisoner must be diagnosed with a serious mental illness, and the mental health care professional must state that the medication prescribed is in the prisoner's best interest. 14th 1992 Riggins v. Nevada
Non compos mentis and felo de se (the Latin word for "self-murder") presented two different verdicts in the case of a suicide.In the finding of a jury, the deceased who was stigmatized felo de se would be excluded from burial in consecrated ground and would forfeit their estate to the Crown, while these penalties would not apply to the deceased affirmed non compos mentis.
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