Ohio man excuted after vulgar last gesture

Executing the Mentally-Ill is a Crime

by César Chelala



Christopher Johnson’s execution by the State of Alabama creates serious doubts about the justice of a measure that is widely criticized by human rights advocates throughout the world. According to the group Equal Justice Initiative, the Alabama Supreme Court planned the execution without even engaging in a meaningful review of the case.

Christopher Johnson was convicted of killing his son in 2005. Johnson’s attorneys claimed that he wasn’t guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. However, during the trial, Johnson asked the trial judge for permission to represent himself. Despite ample evidence that Johnson had a long history of mental illness, the judge allowed him to do so. Although during his detention Johnson showed destructive behavior associated with mental illness, the trial judge sentenced Mr. Johnson to death. He was executed on October 21, 2011.

There were several mitigating circumstances for Johnson’s behavior. He was sexually molested by an uncle from age seven to twelve; he started taking drugs at sixteen, and throughout his childhood he was placed in programs for children with severe behavioral problems. Death sentences imposed without consideration for mitigating circumstances are inherently unreliable, held the U.S. Supreme Court.

An even more egregious case is the execution of the mentally retarded. Such was the case of Milton Mathis, 32. Despite considerable body of evidence showing that Mathis was clearly retarded, the Supreme Court denied his appeal for clemency and he was executed in Texas last June 21st. He became the 470th individual put to death in Texas in modern times.

According to Amnesty International, executing the mentally ill –those who don’t understand the reasons for their punishment- violates the U.S. Constitution (Ford v. Wainwright, 1986). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the common law rule that the “insane” cannot be executed.

In a 1986 opinion by Justice Thurgood Marshall, he reasoned that executing them didn’t serve any punitive goals and that Florida’s procedures for determining competency to stand trial were inadequate. After he was reevaluated, Alvin Bernard Ford was transferred to Florida State Hospital for treatment and found to be incompetent to be executed.

There has been widespread international criticism of the death penalty for the gravely mentally ill. In 1997, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions said that, “Governments that continue to use the death penalty with respect to minors and the mentally ill are particularly called upon to bring their domestic legislation into conformity with international legal standards.” And in 2000, the UN Commission on Human Rights urged all states that maintain the death penalty “not to impose it on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder; not to execute any such person.”

Since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States. A striking case was that of Viet Nam veteran Manny Babbitt. Because of his heroism during the war, he had been awarded a Purple Heart for his heroic behavior during the war. After returning from Vietnam, Babbitt’s life revolved around drugs, medications and mental institutions. He also suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He screamed for help, saying, “I am going to hurt somebody.”

During what seemed to be a burglary attempt, he struck a woman in the head and she died of a heart attack. The details of his crime seem to indicate that he had a flashback to his actions during the war. He wrapped his victim in a blanket and tagged her as if she were a captive soldier on the battlefield. Manny’s brother turned him into the police, and was promised counseling and support for his brother. Instead, he was tried by an all-white jury (Manny Babbitt was black) and was executed on May 4, 1999. After he was executed for his crime, he received a funeral with military honors.

The American Bar Association passed a 2006 resolution calling for the exemption of those with serious mental illness from imposition and execution of the death penalty. The National Association of Mental Health estimates that five to ten percent of those on death row have serious mental illness.

One of those in death row is Scott Panetti, convicted for the murder of his parents-in-law Joe and Amanda Alvarado on September 8, 1992, in Texas. He was sentenced to death in 1995, although he had a long history of mental illness. He was hospitalized, both voluntarily and involuntarily, for mental illness 14 times before his arrest for capital murder in 1992.

After his conviction, Sonia Alvarado, Panetti’s former wife and daughter of the victims filed a petition stating that he should have never been tried for his crimes, since he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the killings. And Panetti’s mother said, “He did a terrible thing, but he was sick. Where is the compassion? Is this the best our society can do?”
Executing the Mentally-Ill is a Crime | Common Dreams

No system is ever perfect, a perfect system is still like millions of years way off, providing we're all still here, not blown each other to hell or a meteor struck us or whatever that can set us back all over again.

But as the old saying goes, "let the punishment fit the crime". Take a life, you lose yours. No exceptions.

If you prove without a shadow of doubt proven to be capable to take a life, you're a danger to society as a whole. There can be no erasing what has done.

Sometimes, psychologically speaking, after a first kill, which is liken a wolf who had it's first kill, when you taste blood for the first time, you're hooked to the kill and for the most of them, there can be no turning back.

Let them go or ignore then, the killing won't stop until WE stop them.

Really, they've got it made these days with being put to sleep rather than fry on the electric chair or gasping for air, choking a powdered system called cyanide. Or facing a firing squad while scared crapless with a hood over your head or vice versa while being hanged.

It's just insulting to see murderers, child molesters laughing in their cells while being fed and given recreation while at the same time, being kept alive at the expense of the tax payer's money.

It just ain't right.

Yiz
 
No system is ever perfect, a perfect system is still like millions of years way off, providing we're all still here, not blown each other to hell or a meteor struck us or whatever that can set us back all over again.

But as the old saying goes, "let the punishment fit the crime". Take a life, you lose yours. No exceptions.

If you prove without a shadow of doubt proven to be capable to take a life, you're a danger to society as a whole. There can be no erasing what has done.

Sometimes, psychologically speaking, after a first kill, which is liken a wolf who had it's first kill, when you taste blood for the first time, you're hooked to the kill and for the most of them, there can be no turning back.

Let them go or ignore then, the killing won't stop until WE stop them.

Really, they've got it made these days with being put to sleep rather than fry on the electric chair or gasping for air, choking a powdered system called cyanide. Or facing a firing squad while scared crapless with a hood over your head or vice versa while being hanged.

It's just insulting to see murderers, child molesters laughing in their cells while being fed and given recreation while at the same time, being kept alive at the expense of the tax payer's money.

It just ain't right.

Yiz

You are so confused. So, what if someone decides that your wife being kept alive at taxpayers expense is unnacceptable?
 
But again, that has virtually nothing to do with the execution. The man was decidedly mentally ill at the time of execution. That is the issue. No one is arguing his conviction. What is being argued is the legality of the state in executing a mentally ill inmate. And not just the legality, the humanity.

For sake of debate, I am not for one side or the other (well, maybe leaning towards to the not so sympathetic side) - this is a very complicated matter because one has to ask themselves, should we exercise humanity to a man by voting against the death penalty even if he killed his own children? And is it more humane to have him live behind bars, in isolation for decades? Is this an act of kindness towards the mentally ill to lock them up in the center for the criminally insane and keep them in a zombie state through overmedication? Is this what we would call being humane?

It's a very complicated matter and to be honest, if a man, even if mentally ill, killed my sons, I would have no ability whatsoever to exercise any mercy or humanity towards him.
 
And then she dressed them, and systematically displayed them, all adding time to the total amount of time she used to carry out the crime.
It was all done within one hour, not several hours as you posted.

The information they needed to show his mental state at the time of arrest was withheld.
That's not what I asked.

I asked whether his lawyers presented a diagnosis of mental illness that was made prior to the crime at his trial.

That is, if there was a diagnosis of mental illness that was made prior to the crime, was that presented at his trial?

Again, no one is arguing his conviction. What is being argued is the act of executing a mentally ill inmate, and the fact that information regarding his mental health status was withheld from the 3 judge panel that recommended the death penalty. One judge has already publicly stated had the information been available, he would not have recommended death.
Was he diagnosed with a mental illness prior to committing the crime?
 
For sake of debate, I am not for one side or the other (well, maybe leaning towards to the not so sympathetic side) - this is a very complicated matter because one has to ask themselves, should we exercise humanity to a man who killed his own children by voting against the death penalty even if he killed his own children? And is it more humane to have him live behind bars, in isolation for decades? Is this an act of kindness towards the mentally ill to lock them up in the center for the criminally insane and keep them in a zombie state through overmedication? Is this what we would call being humane?

It's a very complicated matter and to be honest, if a man, even if mentally ill, killed my sons, I would have no ability whatsoever to exercise any mercy or humanity towards him.

Yes, it is a complicated issue, and that is exactly why the Supreme Court took the issue on in 1986.

I understand your personal feelings. We all would have them. But that is the stuff of vigilantes, not the laws of a nation. We do not, nor should we, decide the laws of a nation based on a wish for revenge.
 
Ugh. So many things to choose from...

The age old argument of "Is capital punishment societies form of exacting revenge on the murderer or is it a permanent way of making sure the murderer will never kill again"?

And what's to say he wasn't bird flipping to the entire world? We'll probably never know because the article stated he didn't say anything. So it's left up to us to decide.
 
...I understand your personal feelings. We all would have them. But that is the stuff of vigilantes, not the laws of a nation. We do not, nor should we, decide the laws of a nation based on a wish for revenge.
DeafCaroline didn't say that she would kill the guy or that she would ignore the judicial process, which would be vigilantism. She said that she wouldn't have any feelings of mercy or humanity towards him.
 
It was all done within one hour, not several hours as you posted.


That's not what I asked.

I asked whether his lawyers presented a diagnosis of mental illness that was made prior to the crime at his trial.

That is, if there was a diagnosis of mental illness that was made prior to the crime, was that presented at his trial?


Was he diagnosed with a mental illness prior to committing the crime?

And I answered that question. If you will scroll back, the answer is in my preveious post. Yes, he had been diagnosed prior. He was obviously psychotic at the time of arrest. Whether he had been diagnosed prior is not the issue. The fact that information was withheld that would have impacted the sentencing regarding his mental state is what is at the heart of the issue. The fact that he was known to be mentally ill at the time of execution is what is at the heart of the case.

Re: Andrea Yates, one hour, two hours, 3 minutes. She still killed 5 children in a systematic way. She was psychotic. She was psychotic when she was arrested. But that information was not withheld during her trial. Therefore, her verdict was even different than this man.

Again, no one is denying his guilt. What is being argued is the information regarding his sentencing that was withheld, and in light of that information, John Kasick's refusal to commute his sentence to life without parole.
 
DeafCaroline didn't say that she would kill the guy or that she would ignore the judicial process, which would be vigilantism. She said that she wouldn't have any feelings of mercy or humanity towards him.

Lack of mercy and feelings of humanity are what are at the core of vigilante action. But I did not say vigilante action. I was referring to attitude. I'm certain that DC understands that.
 
Ugh. So many things to choose from...

The age old argument of "Is capital punishment societies form of exacting revenge on the murderer or is it a permanent way of making sure the murderer will never kill again"?

And what's to say he wasn't bird flipping to the entire world? We'll probably never know because the article stated he didn't say anything. So it's left up to us to decide.

I have read statements from his attorneys.

But you are correct. What difference does it make? The State of Ohio illegally executed a mentally ill inmate.
 
In other words, the guy simply becomes a monster in their eyes.

Didn't you mention Hitler earlier? He convinced millions that Jews were monsters and deserved to be killed simply because they were able to be convinced due to their propensity to see others as lesser.
 
You are so confused. So, what if someone decides that your wife being kept alive at taxpayers expense is unnacceptable?

There's a diff between killing an innocence who has done nothing wrong and no evidence to prove otherwise than putting down a convicted criminal of a capital crime.

This mentally ill argument crap has been used for years since the hippie days. Every criminal standing before a judge are too often told that the perp is mentally ill. Defense attorneys will do whatever it takes to ensure that their client don't get convicted, but if still gonna be convicted, get them off with a plea deal for a lesser sentence, just as long it's not the death penalty.

Besides, it doesn't matter, if you kill someone, you're forever a threat to the next guy. Keeping a guy in prison risks the lives of an inmate as well as the Prison Officers. All they need is just one chance and before ya know it, you're deader than a doorknob. It's just that quick, even with the best safety protocols.

Many of you speak high and mighty about the death penalty, but it's my surefire 1 million perecent that while you can talk crap about the DP, until a hideous crime happens to you or someone you love dearly, you're gonna change your mind real fast and if you could, kill that person yourself or even beg the judge to let you throw the switch. Any loving and caring parent would feel that way.

That's what I love so much about Libs, talk crap until it happens to them and start doing in the exact opposite of what they talked crap about in the first place.

LOL

Ahhhhh, great comedy.

Yiz
 
There's a diff between killing an innocence who has done nothing wrong and no evidence to prove otherwise than putting down a convicted criminal of a capital crime.

This mentally ill argument crap has been used for years since the hippie days. Every criminal standing before a judge are too often told that the perp is mentally ill. Defense attorneys will do whatever it takes to ensure that their client don't get convicted, but if still gonna be convicted, get them off with a plea deal for a lesser sentence, just as long it's not the death penalty.

Many of you speak high and mighty about the death penalty, but it's my surefire 1 million perecent that while you can talk crap about the DP, until a hideous crime happens to you or someone you love dearly, you're gonna change your mind real fast and if you could, kill that person yourself or even beg the judge to let you throw the switch. Any loving and caring parent would feel that way.

That's what I love so much about Libs, talk crap until it happens to them and start doing in the exact opposite of what they talked crap about in the first place.

LOL

Ahhhhh, great comedy.

Yiz

There is no difference in deciding and declaring that one segment of the population is expendable due to their lack of productivity, illness, and cost to taxpayers than in deciding that another segment of the population is expendable due to their lack of productivity, illness, and cost to taxpayers.

Since the hippie days? You are a joke. You are going to need to go a heck of a lot further back in history than that!

And again, you are arguing guilt or innocence. That is not an issue in this case.
 
And I answered that question. If you will scroll back, the answer is in my preveious post. Yes, he had been diagnosed prior. He was obviously psychotic at the time of arrest. Whether he had been diagnosed prior is not the issue.
Yes, it is an issue. You said that there was evidence of prior mental illness. A diagnosis would be proof of that. Otherwise, it's just opinion, which doesn't carry as much weight during a trial.

The fact that information was withheld that would have impacted the sentencing regarding his mental state is what is at the heart of the issue.
If he had been diagnosed with a mental illness, and if his lawyers presented that fact, he might not have even been convicted on a death penalty charge in the first place. So, whether he was diagnosed mentally ill prior to the crime is a very important factor.

Re: Andrea Yates, one hour, two hours, 3 minutes.
Getting the facts straight is crucial during a trial. You can't make up time lines.

She still killed 5 children in a systematic way. She was psychotic. She was psychotic when she was arrested. But that information was not withheld during her trial. Therefore, her verdict was even different than this man.
Ah, ha, just as I posted. Her verdict was different. Why? Because her lawyers presented proof that she was diagnosed as mentally ill PRIOR to the killings.

Again, no one is denying his guilt. What is being argued is the information regarding his sentencing that was withheld, and in light of that information, John Kasick's refusal to commute his sentence to life without parole.
Again, I ask. Was his diagnosis of prior mental illness withheld from his lawyers, or did they neglect to present it during the trial, prior to conviction?
 
But I thought you were the one with a PhD who didn't make personal attacks?

I guess you were wrong. I am as capable of retalliation to attacks as anyone else on this forum is.
 
I cannot believe some of the replies in here. If a person is to be executed, first tell him/her that all is forgiven, that it is understood why the murder was committed. Then, while the person is smiling, BLAM! Shot him/her in the back of the head.
 
Yes, it is an issue. You said that there was evidence of prior mental illness. A diagnosis would be proof of that. Otherwise, it's just opinion, which doesn't carry as much weight during a trial.


If he had been diagnosed with a mental illness, and if his lawyers presented that fact, he might not have even been convicted on a death penalty charge in the first place. So, whether he was diagnosed mentally ill prior to the crime is a very important factor.


Getting the facts straight is crucial during a trial. You can't make up time lines.


Ah, ha, just as I posted. Her verdict was different. Why? Because her lawyers presented proof that she was diagnosed as mentally ill PRIOR to the killings.


Again, I ask. Was his diagnosis of prior mental illness withheld from his lawyers, or did they neglect to present it during the trial, prior to conviction?

Again, I answered it. And no, it is not an issue. It would have been an issue only at trial, not in his execution.

No, she was diagnosed as mentally ill during the killings. That is the issue that is a factor before the court. Mental state at the time of the commission of the crime. And there was evidence of this man's psychosis during the commission of his crimes. It was withheld by the prosecutors. Even one of the judges on the sentencing panel has spoken publicly on that fact. Had he had the withheld information regarding this man's mental state, he would not have voted for the death penalty. It takes a unanimous vote from the panel to enact a death sentence.

However, this is not about his trial. This is not about his guilt or innocence. It is about his execution as a mentally ill inmate. John Kasick had the opportunity to prevent the illegal execution of a mentally ill inmate. He chose not to.
 
I cannot believe some of the replies in here. If a person is to be executed, first tell him/her that all is forgiven, that it is understood why the murder was committed. Then, while the person is smiling, BLAM! Shot him/her in the back of the head.

I can't believe the ways in which they have attempted to confuse the issue.:roll:
 
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