Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) -- Unkempt, unwashed, unable to do much more than mumble ``word salads,'' death row inmate Horace Kelly is so out of touch, his lawyers say, he thinks he's already been executed eight times. Kelly is scheduled to die April 14, unless lawyers making a last-ditch effort to spare him can convince jurors that he's insane. A sanity hearing looks to the mind of a murderer for the answer to a question that hasn't been raised in California for 47 years: What happens if a condemned prisoner goes mad? The hearing was to begin today. ``The question is not whether or not you're psychotic. There's a lot of psychotic people on death row. The question is whether or not you're so far gone that you don't understand the nature and effect of the death penalty and why you're getting it,'' said Michael Radelet, chairman of the University of Florida's sociology department and author of the 1993 book ``Executing the Mentally Ill.'' Radelet, who recently visited Kelly, said it's obvious he should be spared under state and federal law prohibiting the execution of the insane. Not everyone is convinced. ``He's not being executed for who he is. He's being executed for what he did,'' Shannon Prock, who watched Kelly kill her young cousin, told The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. Kelly, 38, was sent to death row for murdering three people in a seven-day rampage in November 1984. Two of his victims, Sonia Reed and Ursula Houser, were found on San Bernardino streets, shot to death and nude from the waist down. The third victim was 11-year-old Danny Osentowski, Ms. Prock's cousin. Danny and 13-year-old Shannon, together for Thanksgiving Day, were walking home from a corner store when Kelly grabbed Shannon at gunpoint. Danny came to the rescue, kicking Kelly. Shannon later testified that she heard a shot and then heard Danny say ``Don't shoot me again. I'll die this way.'' Kelly shot Danny point blank between the eyes. In 1986, Kelly was sentenced to die for Danny's murder. A year later he was found competent to stand trial for the murders of the two women, for which he also received a death sentence. The sanity hearing was prompted by a report from a prison psychiatrist. State law requires prison officials to notify prosecutors if a condemned man's sanity is in question. A jury of 12 must decide the matter. California hasn't had such a case since 1951. The defense contends that the statute in question, which is 100 years old, needs to be updated to conform with Supreme Court rulings. But Marin County Superior Court Judge William McGivern ruled the law could be interpreted to provide the protections the Supreme Court requires, such as the defendant's right to attend and be represented by a lawyer. At least nine jurors must agree on a verdict; their decision cannot be appealed. Prosecutors won't say if they'll try to prove Kelly is sane. His lawyers say Kelly grew up in an abusive family, and sometimes ate dog food, sat in a tree and howled when he was a young man; he believed he had bionic ears. Prison officials do not arrange interviews with death row inmates, but Kelly's lawyers provided reports indicating a steady deterioration in his mental health. A 1991 evaluation is blank except for this: ``This disturbed man cannot respond to questions.'' Last month, when Kelly was visited by psychiatrist Sophia Vinogradov, he was dirty, smelly and incoherent. Asked if he knew what crimes he was to be executed for, Kelly replied, `Under animal law book under public people it would be certified people group or congregation.'' Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center said it's rare for an execution to be stopped because of insanity. One of the best known cases is that of Gary Alvord, a mental hospital escapee who strangled three women and was sent to Florida's death row in 1974. He was judged incompetent 10 years later but later was returned to death row. -- Two rules in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know. 2. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
