[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] on Wednesday halted [opinion, PDF] the execution of a Texas death row inmate allegedly suffering from severe mental illness. The inmate, Scott Panetti, was sentenced to death [NYT report] for the killing of his parents-in-law in 1992. The per curium opinion states that the court will stay execution “pending further order of the court to allow us to fully consider the late arriving and complex legal questions at issue in this matter.” Lawyers for Panetti contend that their client suffers from schizophrenia [NIH backgrounder] and had called on the federal courts to intervene on the basis that the execution of a mentally ill individual violates the Eighth Amendment’s [text] ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The use of the death penalty in the US has drawn heavy criticism both domestically and internationally. Earlier this week UN human rights experts on arbitrary executions and torture urged [JURIST report] the state of Texas and the US government to prevent the execution of Panetti. In October an Alabama death row inmate filed [JURIST report] a federal lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections [official website] claiming that the new lethal injection mix planned for use in his execution is unconstitutional. In May a UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] spokesperson issued a statement [JURIST report] urging the US to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty following a botched execution [JURIST report] performed in Oklahoma.