Charles Singleton, an Arkansas death row inmate diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, needs medication in order to make him competent enough to be murdered by the state. How's that for a sick joke on justice?
Aside from the fact that capital punishment is, by its very nature, cruel and unusual - and also the ultimate irony, since it basically sanctions murder - doesn't the phrase "mentally ill" mean anything in the US legal system? The fact that you have voices speaking inside your head and that you cannot function without heavy medication ought to send up signal flares that this man needs
help, not a lethal injection.
Most of the time, I have faith in the human species, but once in a while something will come along to cause me grave doubts. The death penalty in general is one of those things; this case in specific just makes me want to cry.