The Panetti Ruling and Timberlake's Case

In January, Indiana inmate Norman Timberlake received a stay of execution after it was found that executing him before the Supreme Court heard the Scott Panetti case would be unjust and, dependent on the Court's decision, potentially unconstitutional. The June ruling of the Court re-asserts a 1986 decision, stating that in order to be executed, a convicted murderer must be able to recognize the relation between their crime and their pending death. According to this ruling, Timberlake's death sentence should be overturned, as his execution would prove a violation of our nation's principles.

Objections to the execution of Panetti, whose mental insanity includes a delusion that he is being killed to keep him from preaching the gospel, were considered parallel to those surrounding Timberlake--a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks that he is being tortured daily by a machine that will kill him to keep him silent.

The Indiana Supreme Court, in ruling that it could not allow Timberlake to be executed until Panetti was decided on
and various questions about mental illness and qualifications for the death penalty answered, provided an opportunity for justice that no lower court in the state's system afforded Timberlake.

ND ASK will monitor and report on any future hearings in Timberlake's case. It is crucial that his death sentence be overturned in light of the Panetti ruling, and we must work to ensure that the Supreme Court's recent decision takes effect in Indiana.