Bump and Update: U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks stopped the execution by granting a 60 day stay. [Ed. changed from our earlier erroneous report that the Governor had granted the stay. See comments for those who spotted our error.]

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Original Post

The next Texecution is set for Thursday. Louis Panetti, 45, has been in and out of mental hospitals 14 times. He represented himself at trial--in a cowboy outfit. He tried to subpoena Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy and Anne Bancroft as witnesses. Governor Rick Perry can still stop the execution:

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the verdict and sentence in 1997, ruling that whether Mr. Panetti was competent to represent himself was not the issue. "The appropriate question is whether he is competent to choose the endeavor," said the court, which ruled that he was.

It found that "a mere mental disease or defect, though it may constitute a form of insanity known to and recognized by medical science, does not excuse one for committing a crime." The court found evidence that Mr. Panetti knew that what he was doing was wrong.

At a news conference in Austin on Tuesday, representatives of the Texas Defender Service, a private nonprofit law firm representing indigent capital defendants, called on Mr. Perry for a 30-day reprieve to allow a review of the case.

"Allowing a schizophrenic in a cowboy costume to represent himself in a death penalty case gives new meaning to the term `frontier justice,' "said Jim Marcus, executive director of the defender service. "Given the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' history of tolerance for defense lawyers who sleep or use drugs and alcohol throughout death penalty trials, however, its laissez-faire approach is hardly surprising," he said.

Panetti did have standby counsel during the trial. His view:

Scott Monroe, who was named standby counsel with no authority to aid the defense unless asked, said: "It was very obvious from his mannerisms and the way he conducted himself that he was mentally ill. There was never a question about that. That was very well documented, but still he was allowed to defend himself in that case, and basically I sat around and watched him do it."

Update: Take action here.