Whether a state court may rely on junk science and lay stereotypes of the severely mentally ill to adjudicate a Ford claim

QUESTION PRESENTED In Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007), this Court held that a prisoner is incompetent to be executed if, despite his awareness of a causal link between his crime and punishment, he suffers from gross delusions that put his awareness in a context so far removed from reality that execution can serve no penological purpose. In this case, all three court-appointed experts at a Ford hearing agreed that Mr. Mays is seriously mentally ill, suffers from gross delusions and paranoia, and is cognitively impaired. All three experts also agreed that, at a minimum, Mr. Mays has been able to articulate that he was convicted of a capital offense and was sentenced to death for that crime. However, two of the court-appointed experts opined that Mr. Mays believes that the State seeks to now execute him because of a conspiracy related in part to the State’s desire to steal his green energy ideas. A third expert was unable to elicit the same information from Mr. Mays, but also did not elicit anything contradictory, while opining that he thought Mr. Mays was competent. In considering the evidence of incompetence, the trial court relied on lay stereotypes of the mentally ill, while evaluating the expert testimony based on how closely the experts adhered to an unscientific, unvalidated, pre-Panetti checklist for forensic evaluation that did not include questions designed to illuminate a prisoner’s rational understanding of why he is being executed. Cf. Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017). The trial court held that Mr. Mays was competent to be executed, ignoring virtually all evidence of incompetence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. Thus, this case raises the following two questions: 1. May a state court rely on junk science and lay stereotypes of the severely mentally ill to adjudicate a Ford claim? 2. If an inmate acknowledges the presence of a causal link between the offense and his death sentence, but believes as a result of a grossly delusional belief system that the State seeks to execute him in order to steal his green energy ideas, protect Big Oil, and save money, may he be executed consistent with the Eighth Amendment? i