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Is Mentally Ill Inmate Competent to be Executed?

By Kristin Houle

Here's an article from The Scranton Times-Tribune regarding Pennsylvania death row inmate George Banks ("Banks' mental capacity will be at issue at hearing," August 11, 2008), who suffers from severe mental illness. A hearing will take place later this week to determine whether Banks should be declared incompetent to be executed. He was found incompetent in 2006, but the state Supreme Court overruled the judge's decision.Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that two death row inmates with mental illness can be forcibly medicated in order to render them competent to continue their appeals and face execution.A full timeline of the case accompanies the article, excerpted below:"George Banks sits in his cell at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford for days at a time, alone with the fantasies and delusions that have played in his psyche since before the 1982 killing spree that left 13 people dead in Wilkes-Barre and Jenkins Township, including five of his own children...continue to full post

Full post as published by Prevention Not Punishment on August 12, 2008 (boomark / email).