Guided by your own standard, we take this opportunity to remind you again why mercy should be extended to Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott is severely mentally ill and suffers from schizophrenia. There is a strong indication that Mr. Scott has suffered from mental disease since early childhood. However, one need look no further than the staggering circumstances of Mr. Scott's upbringing-a world marked by extreme deprivation, in which Mr. Scott and his ten siblings were required to steal food and coal, and severe violence, culminating in Mr. Scott's alcoholic father repeatedly stabbing his mother-to understand how Mr. Scott's illness remained undiagnosed and untreated. Nonetheless, as early as 1974, almost ten years before Vinnie Prince's murder, a prison doctor first diagnosed Mr. Scott as psychotic and possibly schizophrenic.
Remarkably, no evidence of Mr. Scott's mental illness, nor any other compelling mitigating evidence relating to his childhood, was presented to the jury-evidence that the law contemplates jurors will consider in deciding whether or not to impose a death sentence and the presentation of which you yourself have deemed important in considering clemency. In fact, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit criticized Mr. Scott's attorneys' complete failure to even investigate such mitigating factors.
In addition, the Sixth Circuit recognized that having been presented with this mitigating evidence, "it is impossible to say for certain that one juror would not have been swayed," but concluded that the existence of such a juror was only "hypothetical," and therefore, as you note, denied Mr. Scott's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. However, what may have appeared merely hypothetical to the Sixth Circuit has now been proven. Indeed, at least one juror has indicated that the lack of any mitigating evidence prevented her from voting against imposing a death sentence and from convincing other jurors to do the same.
Today, the portrait of Mr. Scott's illness is harrowing-marked by episodes in which he continuously bangs his head against the wall, runs into walls, screams incoherently, burns himself, and fouls his food and eats it. Any failure on the part of Mr. Scott to rehabilitate himself or his repeated rule infractions, to which you refer, must be considered in light of his mental illness and the quality of any treatment he is receiving in prison.
The execution of one who, because of mental illness, cannot comprehend the reasons for the penalty or its implications is unconstitutional. Further, the imposition of the death penalty on anyone suffering from mental disease has been repeatedly condemned. To conclude that Mr. Scott does not meet the standards of Ford v. Wainwright, based on a layperson's assessment that he is "lucid, alert, attentive and willing to respond to questions," is premature without a competency hearing.
The ACLU opposes capital punishment in all cases as a barbarous anachronism and in violation of the Constitution. In Mr. Scott's case, a jury imposed this ultimate punishment without having weighed any mitigating evidence. Questions about the fairness of Mr. Scott's trial and more significantly his upbringing and mental illness particularly warrant mercy.
We respectfully urge you to reconsider your denial of clemency in this tragic case.
Sincerely,
Diann Rust-Tierney
ACLU Capital Punishment Project
Scott T. Greenwood
ACLU of Ohio General Counsel
Amy L. Friedman
Pro Bono Counsel
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, L.L.P.
