Colleen Curry from Vice reported on the Scott Panetti case and highlighted Conservative Concerned about the Death Penalty. She said,
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a last-minute reprieve this afternoon to Panetti after his attorneys filed a motion arguing that his mental health should be reevaluated.
She went on,
Many Texas evangelical leaders, along with former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, have also spoken out against Panetti’s death sentence, but, until the court’s ruling this afternoon, the execution was still scheduled for Wednesday night.
Curry quoted me as saying,
“When you look at his case, there’s a lot of elements that give conservatives and evangelicals pause,” Hyden said. “[Panetti] is a person with a severe track record of mental illness… A lot of conservatives and evangelicals who are worried about his case don’t think it’s right — think it’s a travesty of justice.
“Things are changing and they’re changing really quickly,” Hyden continued. “As we learn more and educate people on how broken the system really is, we see conservatives realizing its antithetical to their core principles: it risks killing someone who’s not guilty, it costs more than life without parole, it gives the government power to kill you, and it fails to deter people.”