US FEDERAL COURT RULES INSANE INMATE CAN BE EXECUTED

a sharply divided 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay of execution for Charles Singleton, saying his medically induced sanity makes him eligible for execution.
Singleton´s defence had argued it was in his best interest to take anti-psychotic medicine - until the resulting sanity put him on the path to Arkansas´ death chamber. His lawyers asked that the sentence be reduced to life in prison.
Six of the 11 judges on the St. Louis-based 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 impact 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.
"Based on the medical history in this case, I am left with no alternative but to conclude that drug-induced sanity is not the same as true sanity," dissenting Judge Gerald Heaney wrote.
"Singleton is not ´cured´; his insanity is merely muted, at times, by the powerful drugs he is forced to take."
In October 2001, a panel of the 8th Circuit ruled that Singleton be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The state appealed, and the court reversed that ruling Monday. Singleton was convicted of stabbing grocer Mary Lou York to death in a 1979 robbery.