This is fucked up. It is.
From ananova.com:
Killer can be executed because drugs make him sane
A US appeal court has ruled that a mentally ill man who has been on death row for 25 years is sane enough when on medication to be executed.
Charles Singleton would be too insane to qualify for execution without the drugs.
A court in Little Rock, Arkansas, lifted a stay of execution ruling that his medically induced sanity makes him eligible for the death penalty.
Singleton was convicted of stabbing grocer Mary Lou York to death during a 1979 robbery. She identified him as her attacker before dying.
Singleton’s lawyers argued that the inmate was in Catch 22 situation: taking anti-psychotic medication was in his interest – but not if the resulting sanity puts him on the path to the death chamber.
Six of the 11 judges on the panel said that because Singleton prefers to be medicated, and because Arkansas has an interest in having sane inmates, the side-effect of sanity should not affect his fate.
The four dissenting judges said it would be wrong to execute Singleton, who becomes paranoid and delusional when not medicated, and sometimes is still psychotic while medicated. One judge abstained.
In October 2001, an appeal court ruled that Singleton was to be jailed for life in prison without the possibility of parole. The state appealed, and the court reversed that ruling yesterday.
Assistant Attorney General Kelly Hill said the state had to continue pursuing the case because Singleton was sentenced to death.
“We are going to do our statutory and constitutional duty,” Hill said. “If the court says it is constitutional … we will take the necessary steps. If the court says it is unconstitutional, we will abide by that decision.”
© Associated Press
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