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 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a mentally ill Texas murderer because lower courts failed to consider whether he had a rational understanding of why he was to be killed.
The justices ruled 5-4 in the case of Scott Louis Panetti. He was convicted and sentenced to death for shooting his in-laws in front of his wife and young children in 1992.
Panetti suffers from delusions, a condition that his lawyers say keeps him from comprehending the reason or purpose of his death sentence.
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