Perry lets mentally ill man be executed: Parole board's rare clemency vote overridden
This defendant is a very violent individual. Texas has no life without parole sentencing option, and no one can guarantee this defendant would never be freed to commit other crimes were his sentence commuted. In the interest of justice and public safety, I am denying the defendant's request for clemency and a stay.
- Gov. Rick Perry
They gave lip service to it being a hard case. But the ultimate justification was of a mad dog that had to be shot. That's the image I got after hearing their statement. How can you end your statement by emphasizing his violence and not mentioning his mental illness. I guess it means that in Texas you better not be dangerous, because nothing else matters.
- Gary Hart, Kelsey Patterson's attorney
Greetings from Texas, where frontier justice still rules the day, regardless of virtually any other consideration. Of course, no self-respecting law-and-order Republican is going to question our state's commitment to capital punishment, not when there are elections to be won and donors to be pandered to.
I'm not going to get into a debate on the effectiveness and morality of the death penalty- particularly how it is employed here in the Great State of Texas. I've written extensively on the matter, and my opposition to the both the death penalty and the error-prone, racially-biased manner in which it is applied needs no expansion here. No, what I'm upset about here is the fact Governor Goodhair ignored the clemency recommendation of his own parole board in order to execute Kelsey Patterson. Apparently, the one record that Rick Perry is most concerned about is his unblemished record of executing murderers.
Kelsey Patterson was not a good man, not by any measure. He was a violent person, and likely moreso because of his mental illness. The problem here is that while the US Supreme Court has banned the execution of the mentally retarded, there is no such protection for the mentally ill. Patterson is clearly in the grips of a serious mental illness. His family was trying to have him committed just prior to committing the murders for which he was executed. They were refused because Patterson had yet to harm anyone- the old "come back when he kills someone" argument, I suppose. Well, guess what? When you kill someone in Texas, commitment is pretty much out of the question. You might just find yourself hooked up with a date in Huntsville's death chamber, though.
Political reality in Texas makes arguing against the death penalty a very untenable position for a politician. Even if you support the death penalty, though, can anyone tell me what purpose is served by executing the mentally ill? What do we gain by executing those barely able to grasp the reality of their situation? Sure, we'll probably tell ourselves that we feel "safer", and we'll likely feel better about ourselves. Even so, a civlized system should not kill those who cannot fully participate in their own defense due to reasons of mental illness. Of course, Republicans will be able to run on a "law and order" platform, and they will be able to trumpet their efforts to make Texas safer for good, God-fearing people.
We diminish ourselves and our own claim to humanity by executing the mentally ill, no matter how good it makes us feel about ourselves. We may not pay for it now, and we may never be called to account for it. I do believe, however, that we are a lesser people because of this. Of course, I doubt Texas Republicans care a whit about the moral or ethical implications of executing the mentally ill.
