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The Indiana Information Center on the Abolition of Capital Punishment (IICACP) exists to expose the injustice associated with the application of the death penalty in Indiana. IICACP is open to anyone who is opposed to the death penalty.
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By a vote of 3 - 2, the Indiana Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Norman Timberlake, presumably pending the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of Panetti v. Quarterman to decide whether it is constitutional to execute an individual who is "aware" that they are about to be executed because they were convicted of murder, but who suffers from a delusion that affects their rational understanding of why they are being killed. Timberlake's lawyers have not yet seen the Court's order and do not have any more information, except that the justices voting to stay were Rucker, Boehm and Dickson, with Shepard and Sullivan dissenting. Timberlake's lawyers are headed to federal court for their evidentiary hearing on lethal injection, although it is possible that the federal judge will postpone that in light of the stay of execution.
The Language of the Court Oder from the Indiana Supreme Court The potential harm in granting Timberlake a stay of execution and later finding out that the Supreme Court's decision in Panetti was inapplicable to Timberlake is minimal compared to the irreparable harm in denying the stay of execution, allowing Timberlake to be executed, and possibly learning a few months later that Timberlake's execution may have violated a new Supreme Court interpretation of the Eighth Amendment to prohibit execution of a class of mentally ill persons that included Timberlake. See Bottoson, 824 So.2d at 122. In short, until Panetti is decided and its effect on Timberlake's case can be determined, Timberlake's execution should be stayed. |
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