US clears drug cure for killers on death row

[Judi Lynn]

US clears drug cure for killers on death row

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Wednesday October 8, 2003
The Guardian

Convicted murderers with severe mental health problems can be forced to take drugs that would make them clinically sane so that they can be executed, the US supreme court has ruled.

Opponents of the death penalty yesterday described the court's decision to uphold an earlier ruling on the issue - without debating it - as shocking.

The case concerns Charles Singleton who, in 1979, killed a grocery shop worker in Arkansas. He was convicted and sentenced to death later that year.

While awaiting execution, Singleton's mental health deteriorated to such an extent that he believed his victim was still alive, that the authorities had implanted a device in his ear and that his jail cell was under the control of demons.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1058217,00.html

[eagler]

1. Evidently Arnold isn't the only one who

admires the way Hitler got things done.

[shanti]

2. wow

so it's finally come to this...

[demdave]

3. It should never have come to this, he should have had his sentence

carried out while he was still sane. He was deemed sane at the time of the crime and trial. This much time should not have elapsed.

[cprise]

4. We now have a chemical definition of 'sane'

How fascist.

[truthisfreedom]

5. i'm not sure that chemically sane would apply in bush*'s case.

once he's locked up, i say, keep him there... don't allow him the easy way out.