Death Penalty

Raymond Riles has spent 33 years on Texas death row for the 1974 robbery and murder of Houston used car salesman John Henry. In the nation's most active execution state, Riles' stay on death row defies standards set in place by Texas to ensure that executions take place as speedily as possible. Despite this, Riles has no execution date or no plans for one. So why is Riles still on death row?

Like many death row inmates across America, Riles suffers from mental illness. The Supreme Court has ruled that mentally incompetent inmates, or inmates that do not understand their execution or why they are being punished, cannot be executed. Inmates on death row with mental illness are routinely evaluated by mental health professionals, and their executions may be scheduled at any time that they are deemed competent. There are already 5 other inmates from Harris County, Texas that are incompetent to be executed.

Four execution dates have been set for Riles, but all of them have been stayed due to his mental capacity. He has not had an execution date in 22 years. In 1985, Riles tried to commit suicide by setting himself on fire in his cell. Riles says of his attempt that

"God consumed him in fire". Riles believes that God committed his crime, chose him to release prisoners from death row, and that a lethal injection would not kill him. He says that "they told me they were going to kill me unless I stopped preaching my mystic gospel. God is the greatest and I didn't come to die on death row. They're trying to silence me because I know about the satanic secret societies of the TDC (Texas Department of Corrections) shadow government e-system".

 While Riles' family members and activists endeavor for him and other mentally ill inmates to be institutionalized, the state periodically evaluates their capacity to be executed. Kristin Houle of Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty states that "It makes no sense for the state to keep someone on death row under severe conditions, when he's been recognized as severely ill". All inmates on death row spend about 23 hours in their cell, something that could certainly constitute as cruel and unusual for the mentally ill. How is it possible that these inmates are receiving access to adequate psychiatric care, and not actually declining?

Roe Wilson, assistant district attorney for Harris County, says that Riles' case is really as simple as the Supreme Court ruling is. Wilson states that mental health care for Riles is

"not really a factor in this case. What the factor is is that Riles was competent when he was tried and given a legal sentence. His confinement is still legal and he simply has a condition right now that makes him not eligible for execution. But that could change."

Attorneys and psychiatric professionals have long advocated for lifetime imprisonment in an institution as a much more appropriate sentence for someone mentally ill. Sadly enough, serious mental illness is not curable, although it can be treated. Furthermore, there is a great amount of evidence that suggests that the conditions and confinement of death row can lead to "death row syndrome", which is the deterioration of inmates under the conditions of death row that can lead to suicidal tendencies, depression, delusion, insanity, and paranoia. In effect, the conditions and confinement of death row have been viewed by courts as torture in and of themselves, where an inmate dies twice.

The state of Texas spends 2.3 million to try a capital case, yet ranks 46^th out of the 50 states in the amount of resources allocated for mental health treatment, including to those incarcerated. The National Association for Health has estimated that 5-10% of inmates on death row suffer from mental illness. The execution of the insane violates the U.S. Constitution, yet the decision to determine who is sane is left up to the individual states.

Certainly these inmates on death row who suffer from mental illness committed terrible crimes, and in addressing their conditions we should have the utmost amount of respect and compassion to the families and loved ones of their victims. But these two evils do not neccesarily mean that facilitating the execution of a mentally ill offender will be ANY sort of justice. As Yvonne Pannetti, mother of Scott Pannetti, a mentally ill death row inmate whose case eventually went to the Supreme Court said "He did a terrible thing, but he was sick. Where is the compassion? Is this the best our society can do?

Emily

DPAC