Molly Ivins August 19

AUSTIN, Texas — Thanks to the Court of Criminal Appeals and a new law passed by the Legislature, Texas has, for the first time, a legal procedure to give meaning to the constitutional guarantee that the state will not execute someone who is mentally incompetent. The law does not take effect until Sept. 1, but the Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the execution of Larry Robison so he can undergo an execution competency hearing.

Although the governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles refused, as they always do, to act in this case, I find it inconceivable that anyone could object to having this killer's mental competence investigated, given that he got a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of mental hospitals long before he committed a particularly horrible crime.

That he was on the streets at all to end the lives of five people is an indictment of the mental health-care system in this state. His sister, who is also schizophrenic, is now living in a group home where she is adequately supervised, the only such facility in the state. If this state were not so cheap, there would have been such a place for Robison 17 years ago, and five people would not have died horribly and their families would not be shattered today.

That's what people mean when they call this a "low-tax, low-service state." Keep it in mind next time some politician brags that we don't have a state income tax.

As for this state's appalling record of executing people who are mentally ill and mentally retarded, we stand condemned by the entire civilized world. Able to understand what is happening and why? State Sen. Rodney Ellis claims that one of the people we executed was so retarded that he actually saved the pudding he had ordered for dessert at his last dinner.

The guards asked him why he didn't eat it, and he said he was saving it for later.

Former Gov. Ann Richards says that the one time during her term she granted a 30-day stay of execution, she got so much hate mail and so many horrible calls that she still hasn't gotten over it. (That was the case of the retarded killer of an elderly nun, whose sisters in the order — her only family — and the pope had begged Richards for clemency.)

I believe that one reason people get so outraged about clemency, even toward those who are profoundly mentally ill or retarded, is because the law is so badly written in this area.

"Not guilty by reason of insanity" is illogical: Larry Robison is just as guilty as he can be of killing five people. And the harm he did didn't end with their lives. The families of his victims are still in pain today — they will never recover from what he did.

That Robison is mentally ill does not mean he is not guilty. The plea should be "guilty but insane" — the culpability remains. To recognize Robison's madness is not to exculpate him.

We make all kinds of distinctions in murder cases: capital murder, murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide. We weigh motive and intent and mental competence all the time.

I understand that the families of Robison's victims do not believe he is insane, despite the record in his case, so their anguish continues even on this aspect of the case. But the whole point of the new procedure is to get some objective evaluation.

Texas' criminal justice system as a whole is notoriously punitive and slipshod. It is quite believable that we would have condemned a madman to death by error. That there is finally a procedural checkpoint is something, at long last, to this state's credit.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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