Arkansas prepares to execute mentally...

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Arkansas prepares to execute mentally...
5
Tue, 01-06-2004 - 10:34am

ill inmate.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/05/singleton.death.row/index.html


The voices inside Charles Singleton's head vary, in volume and number, regardless of whether he has taken medication for his schizophrenia. Inside his Arkansas cell, he says he can often hear voices that speak of killing him.


Singleton's attorney says his 44-year-old client welcomes the scheduled Tuesday night execution he faces, because he is tired of living with mental illness.


The attorney says Singleton understands that he will be put to death and why -- the current legal standards to qualify for execution.


Singleton, however, is rational only when he is on medication. It is that fact, as well as an 18-year-old Supreme Court ruling barring execution of the mentally ill, that his attorney, some members of the legal and medical communities and death penalty critics point to in their opposition to Singleton's execution.


"If he is artificially made to be competent, then the situation is an oxymoron," said Ronald Tabak, a New York-based attorney who has represented clients in death penalty cases.


But the prosecutor in the Singleton case claims the defendant was clearly sane at the time of the crime, and therefore unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling.


"I do not feel he is being medicated in order to put him to death," said John Frank Gibson, who hasn't dealt with the Singleton case in recent years. "He's being medicated to ... keep him healthy, to control him."


Stay of execution lifted

Singleton was 19 when he stabbed Mary Lou York to death while robbing a small grocery store in Hamburg, Arkansas. She identified him before she died. In 1979 he was convicted and sentenced to death.


A prison psychiatrist in 1997 diagnosed Singleton as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. That same year, a prison medication review panel ordered Singleton to take antipsychotic drugs after finding he posed a danger to himself and to others.


After the medication took effect, Singleton's psychotic symptoms abated and Arkansas made plans to execute him.


Singleton's attorneys filed a lawsuit arguing the state could not constitutionally restore his client's mental competency through the use of forced medication and then execute him.


In October 2001, a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Singleton be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


The state of Arkansas appealed, and last February a sharply divided full 8th Circuit Court lifted a stay of execution for Singleton.


The court said that since Singleton now voluntarily takes medication and because Arkansas has an interest in having sane inmates, the side effect of sanity should not affect Singleton's sentence.


Last October, the Supreme Court declined without comment to hear the Singleton case.


Mental illness factor







A majority of Americans has consistently supported use of the death penalty since its reinstatement in the 1970s.


In a Gallup Poll last October 6-8, 64 percent of Americans surveyed said they supported the death penalty, while 32 percent opposed it. The poll surveyed 1,019 people.


But polls also show that the issue of mental illness sharply affects public opinion.


According to a Gallup Poll taken in 2002, 75 percent of those surveyed opposed executing mentally ill inmates, while 19 percent supported it. The poll surveyed 1,012 Americans across the country May 6-9 of 2002.


The son of the victim in the Singleton case says the insanity question is just a ploy.


"I don't believe it," said Charles York. "It's just something they use to prolong things to keep it in the court system."


Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee could still grant clemency. Additionally, Singleton attorney Jeff Rosenzweig last week obtained permission from his client to examine his medical records, but on Monday he said that, unless Singleton's condition drastically deteriorates, it is unlikely he would file an appeal asking a judge to find Singleton incompetent.


Singleton is scheduled to be executed at 8 p.m. (9 p.m. ET) Tuesday by lethal injection at the Cummins prison unit in Varner, about 70 miles south of Little Rock.


Arkansas will execute a second inmate on Tuesday, Karl Roberts, an hour after Singleton's execution. Roberts was convicted for the kidnap, rape and murder of his 12-year-old niece.



cl-Libraone




Edited 1/6/2004 4:44:41 PM ET by cl-libraone

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 01-06-2004 - 3:39pm

The son of the victim in the Singleton case says the insanity question is just a ploy.


"I don't believe it," said Charles York. "It's just something they use to prolong things to keep it in the court system."


Although I can understand this man's pain, it just goes to show ignorance of what mental illness is.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 01-07-2004 - 10:55am

Well said!


York Murderer Dies by Lethal Injection; Seventh Execution Date is Final for Singleton.


http://www.ashleycountyledger.com/articles/2004/01/07/news/h16f704.txt


A full moon illuminated the ice-cold prison courtyard as volunteer executioners administered final earthly justice for Charles Singleton, 44, also known as Victor Ra Hakim. Singleton was executed by lethal injection at 8:02 p.m. at the Cummins unit of the Arkansas Department of Corrections Tues., Jan. 6, 24 years after being convicted and sentenced to death by an Ashley County court for the 1979 murder of Mary Lou York in Hamburg.


Singleton's mental health had been an issue over the years, causing some to object to the state putting a arguably insane man to death. A CNN reporter interviewed Singleton a week before his execution and found him to be expectedly paranoid, ranting, and raving. However, the journalist found the murderer easily able to understand that he was about to be put to death for the murder he committed, and thus by the legal standard, sane.


Eighteen witnesses crowded into a tiny observation room for the efficient, clinical event, which took only four minutes. After opening drapes behind heavy glass windows on one side of the room, a warden announced the execution was about to take place and asked Singleton if he had any last words.


Singleton said he had planned to say something, but had written his words down and given them to the warden instead. Afterward, a copy of the letter, which was indecipherable spiritual gibberish, was given to the media.


With his head shaved and head held in a heavy leather strap, Singleton appeared to be ready for surgery. A man in civilian clothes, wearing a headset and speaking into its microphone, stood at the prisoner's head and watched a monitor.


As the intravenous drip began, Singleton released a sudden breath, his chest moved up and down twice, and he quietly stopped breathing. His thumb and middle finger on his right hand were lightly touching, as if he were meditating for peaceful focus, and never released.


Singleton was unbuckled, examined with a stethoscope, and pronounced dead by the Lincoln County coroner at 8:06 p.m.


In the warden's office at the prison, York's son, daughter, nephew, and two granddaughters watched the events on closed-circuit television, but did not appear for the press afterwards. Families of perpetrators, if they show up for the execution, are held at a roadblock a mile from the prison's entrance.


This was the seventh execution date for Singleton. In 1980 he came with 7 days of execution, in 1982 he came within 18 days once and within 3 days on another occasion, within 11 days in 1993, two days in 1998, and six days in 2001. He spent just over 23 years on death row.


Inmates on death row in Arkansas total 39, with 16 white, 22 black, and one Hispanic, all males. Arkansas has executed 194 persons in it history: 134 black males, 57 white males, two Indian males, and one white female. While 173 of those were murderers, 20 were rapists and one was both.


Jeffrey Rosenzweig, Singleton's attorney, said he was "frustrated, disappointed, and saddened" by the execution. His client was "rational, sane, and at peace," he said.


Karl Roberts, convicted of the kidnapping-murder of his 12-year-old niece, was scheduled to be executed after Singleton. But he won a last-minute stay of execution pending an appeal.

cl-Libraone

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 01-07-2004 - 5:49pm
I hope that the voices in his mind are quiet now...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 10:26am

I don't understand the 'reasoning' behind putting a mentally ill person to death.


(Or the death penalty for that matter, but that's another topic.)

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 11:34am
I suppose I can understand how some who are close to a victim might feel that the death penalty is warranted...but I've also heard many say that