Death Watch: Sane Enough to Die?

Texas has a long history of executing inmates suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and attorneys for Tracy Beatty say the state is attempting to do so again. Beatty is scheduled to die on Nov. 9 for the murder of his mother, Callie Click, in 2003. Dr. Bhush­an Agharkar, hired to test the inmate's mental capacity in September, reported that he is "clearly psychotic and has a complex paranoid delusional belief system."

Agharkar was unable to complete his tests on Beatty after Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials refused to remove the inmate's handcuffs, something Beatty's attorneys are now suing the department over. However, he was able to describe Beatty's delusions: "When questioning turned to his current incarceration, a complex delusional world revealed itself," Agharkar wrote to attorney Jeremy Schepers. "He talked about a vast conspiracy of correctional officers who spread false rumors about him in order to turn people against him. They 'torture' him via a device in his ear so he can hear their menacing voices."

Texas is also continuing a 27-year effort to kill schizophrenic inmate Scott Panetti, whose case is one of the most outrageous in the death penalty's history. Panetti was known to be very mentally ill years before he murdered his in-laws in Fredericksburg in 1992. Nonetheless, he was allowed to represent himself during an absurd trial. Dressed in a purple cowboy outfit, he attempted to call Jesus Christ to the stand and spoke in the gravelly voice of his alter ego, a character he calls Sarge Ironhorse, on whom he blamed the murders. Like Beatty, Panetti believes TDCJ officials have implanted a device in his body – in his case a tooth to broadcast thoughts into his brain.

As in Beatty's case, Dr. Agharkar was hired to evaluate Panetti's mental health, completing his work in July. The Attorney General's Office hired their own psychologist, Dr. Timothy Proctor, to do the same. At a hearing held Oct. 24-27, Proctor admitted the obvious – that Panetti suffers from very serious mental illness. He testified, however, that Panetti could still be legally executed because he has a rational understanding of why he is to be killed, which is the only standard necessary for an execution to proceed.

Agharkar, as reported by The Texas Tribune's Jolie McCul­lough, denied that Panetti understands why he is to be killed – or even that he can be killed. Panetti apparently believes he is a prophet, immortal, and that in trying to execute him Texas is doing Satan's bidding.

"He believes he's being executed so he'll stop preaching," Agharkar told U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman. "It's the Devil." Pitman is expected to decide early next year whether Panetti is sane enough for execution.