Journalsentinel

Death sentence appeal declined

U.S. high court refuses to hear former state man's Texas murder case

By MEG KISSINGER

The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday refused to consider the appeal of Scott Panetti, a former Poynette High School football player, who is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Feb. 5 for killing his in-laws more than 11 years ago.

Panetti, 45, a Hayward native who grew up in Poynette, had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia and committed to a mental hospital more than 10 years before he shot and killed his wife's parents in Fredericksburg, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1992. He represented himself at trial in 1995 wearing a purple cowboy suit and subpoenaing John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ.

His case has drawn attention from Amnesty International, a human rights organization, because of claims that Panetti was suffering from severe mental illness at the time of the murders and that he should not have been allowed to represent himself at trial. He was featured in a Journal Sentinel story in 1999.

Three years after the trial, Sonja Alvarado, Panetti's former wife and the daughter of the victims, filed a petition saying that Panetti never should have been tried for the crimes because he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the killings.

Despite that, several appeals filed on Panetti's behalf have been denied. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recently scheduled Panetti's execution for Feb. 5. He is one of 12 inmates on the current list of prisoners to be executed. Last year, Texas executed 17 prisoners. The inmates on either side of Panetti's cell were executed this week, said his mother Yvonne Panetti.

Panetti has two avenues left to avoid execution, said his lawyer, Michael Gross of San Antonio. Gross said he will file a petition for clemency with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Should that fail, Gross will file an appeal on the grounds that it is against the 8th Amendment of the Constitution to execute a person who is mentally ill.

Panetti's parents, Jack Panetti, a construction worker, and Yvonne, a retired mail carrier, live in Jump River, Wis., during the summer.

Yvonne Panetti said she is frightened for her son.

"He did a terrible thing, but we was sick," she said. "Where is the compassion? Is this the best our society can do?"