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Richmond, Va., Jun 30, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- William Morva is scheduled to be executed in Virginia on July 6.

He has been convicted of murdering an unarmed security guard and a sheriff’s deputy at age 24, while trying to escape jail, where he had been charged with attempted robbery.

However, a court-appointed forensic psychiatrist who examined Morva concluded that he suffered from delusion disorder, and was impaired by the illness at the time of the crime.

Morva’s attorneys claim that had experienced persistent delusions in the past but had not received any mental health treatment in prison.

Fearing that he might die of a perceived gastrointestinal problem because of the deliberate negligence of the guards, and that the prison would not be held accountable for it, Morva, they say, decided to escape and shot the security guard and deputy out of a delusional fear for his life.

The scheduled execution is the latest in a series of controversial death penalty cases involving inmates who are arguably mentally ill or intellectually disabled, and whose mental disorders could well have impaired their reasoning at the time of their crimes.

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled in Moore v. Texas that the standards of Texas for evaluating the mental condition of inmates did not meet the standards set in previous Court decisions Atkins v. Virginia and Hall v. Florida. States’ standards for determining one’s intellectual disability – and thus one’s eligibility for the death penalty – must meet the medical community’s consensus standards.

However, many states still execute inmates with severe mental illness. Many groups, including the Catholic Mobilizing Network, the American Bar Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, have advocated for barring death sentences for persons who have been ruled by a psychologist to have been severely mentally ill at the time of their crime.

In Morva’s case, his lawyers claim he had suffered from delusional disorder that had gotten worse since he dropped out of high school in his senior year and his family moved across the state to Richmond.

He was evaluated by a forensic psychiatrist, Donna Maddox, M.D., who read statements from scores of witnesses who testified to his erratic and delusional behavior. Maddox reviewed his medical records and visited Morva in person.

She concluded that he was indeed suffering from a chronic psychotic disorder at the time of his crimes, and probably had been suffering from the illness several years prior.

After Morva’s family moved to Richmond, he remained in the town of Blacksburg after his time in high school and was “a bit of a vagabond,” Robert Lee of the Virginia Capital Resource Center, which represented Morva after he received a death sentence, told CNA.

While Morva’s high school classmates admitted he was a little odd, they hadn’t seen any serious signs of delusional behavior. However, that reportedly began to change as he walked around town barefoot and slept at the houses of various friends, Lee said.

Thinking that he suffered from a severe gastrointestinal problem, Morva ate raw meat, lots of cheese, berries, and pine cones. As his fluid living situation and poor health management continued, his mental condition deteriorated.

He thought he was destined to be a leader of indigenous tribes in North and South America, and he later believed that the authorities, especially members of the Bush administration, were trying to thwart his grand plan.

In 2005, Morva planned to rob a convenience store with other partners, wearing masks and carrying firearms. They left the storefront after finding it closed, but an employee inside spotted the group and called the police, who apprehended the suspects around town.

Charged with attempted robbery, Morva could not leave the Montgomery County Jail in Virginia because his family could not afford to pay the bail.

After hurting his ankle in a fall and being escorted to a hospital by a prison guard for treatment, he knocked the guard unconscious, stole his gun, and shot an unarmed security guard to death on his way out of the hospital. Hiding along a trail in Blacksburg, Va. for 24 hours, Morva was discovered by a Sheriff’s deputy, whom he shot dead with the stolen gun.

He was apprehended afterward, and was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

At his capital trial, mental health experts did give Morva an evaluation, but they relied on the testimony of his high school friends, who had not been regularly in touch with him as a young adult, when he had suffered his worst bouts of delusions.

Even his estranged mother and sister could only provide limited testimony, as they had lived across the state from him with little contact. They did tell experts of the time he showed up to his father’s funeral unkempt, exhibiting some bizarre behavior, and wanting to walk barefoot, Lee noted.

However, the experts ruled that Morva was not suffering from a psychotic disorder, but rather from a personality disorder that was comprised of odd behavior and a poor attitude. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, after which Robert Lee took up Morva’s case.

“They minimized his mental illness,” Lee insisted, saying that Morva’s psychotic disorders are “amenable to treatment” and medications. Nevertheless, according to the court proceedings, his record is that of his 2006 trial when he was determined to have a personality disorder, not his later determination of delusional disorder.

He is scheduled to be executed on July 6, and Catholics are petitioning Governor Terry McAuliffe to grant him clemency.

Furthermore, Morva’s brother Michael was diagnosed by the Virginia Department of Corrections with a delusional mental disorder. He received treatment and medications for the illness, and after six months the department determined he was “clinically improved and stable.” He is currently employed and living with family.  

“This is the case of somebody who is seriously mentally ill,” Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told CNA, and “that mental illness precipitated the murder.”

Morva’s case is not the only controversial death penalty news of late. On Wednesday, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ended a federal district court’s halt of Ohio’s execution process by lethal injection.

The three-drug process was to be used in three scheduled executions, one of which is now set for July 26.

Ohio had used a drug combination of midazolam, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride in its lethal injection protocol. A federal district court had put a halt to that process after claims that midazolam, a sedative, was not effective enough in blocking the painful effects of the other drugs that would paralyze the subject and stop a beating heart.

Midazolam has been used in botched executions, like in Oklahoma where Clayton Lockett was seen visibly writhing on the gurney after midazolam and the ensuing drugs were administered to him. He eventually died of a massive heart attack.

While some pointed to the failure of midazolam to protect him from the painful effects of the ensuing drugs, others said that the problem was with a faulty administration of an IV into his vein.

A district court halted Ohio’s three-drug process, and the ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit. However, that ruling was appealed to the full court, which issued its 8-6 decision on Wednesday allowing the lethal injection protocol to proceed.

Although there was a risk of pain in the execution method, “the Constitution does not guarantee a pain-free execution,” the court stated. The district court will now make a full decision on the use of the drugs. Ohio had used a three-drug protocol before but stopped the practice in 2009 before taking it up again recently.

 

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Lima, Peru, Jun 30, 2017 / 05:05 pm (CNA).- An Argentine diocesan official has clarified that the local archbishop did not deny a sacramental Catholic wedding to Argentinian soccer player Lionel “Leo” Messi and his girlfriend, Antonella Roccuzzo.
 
Rather, the archbishop forbid that a Catholic wedding for the couple be celebrated in a casino chapel, per Church norms.
 
Some reports about the couple’s wedding, such as those from the international sports media company AS, had claimed that “The Archbishop forbids Messi and Antonella to marry in the Church.”
 
However, the Episcopal Delegate of Communication for the Archdiocese of Rosario, Fr. Rubén Bellante, told CNA that “neither the family of Messi nor the bride asked for a place in any parish in the city of Rosario, nor in the Cathedral either.”
 
“At no time did Archbishop Eduardo Eliseo Martín deny the possibility of the Sacrament of Marriage,” he said.
 
Messi, star of Barcelona FC soccer team and one of the best players in the world, had a civil marriage ceremony at the City Center Casino Complex, south of Rosario, Argentina on June 30 with 260 guests. The wedding was attended by well-known soccer figures and celebrities (such as Shakira) from various parts of the world.
 
Messi met Antonella when he was just 5 years old, but officially their relationship started in 2008. The couple has two children: Thiago, age 4, and Mateo, age 1.
 
The archbishop intervened in the Messi’s wedding only when he was made aware that the couple was planning to construct a chapel in a casino and to have a priest facilitate the ceremony, Fr. Bellante said.
 
The Archbishop banned the priest from facilitating a marriage at the casino. This is in keeping with Church tradition, as it is rare for the Church to approve requests for a Catholic marriage ceremony outside of a Catholic church.
 
Fr. Bellante added that Archbishop Martin suggested that a sacramental marriage for Messi may have been possible in a private house, if such a thing had been requested and were necessary for reasons such as security.
 
However, Messi himself never made requests to any parish in the archdiocese for a sacramental marriage, the priest said.
 
Fr. Bellante added that Archbishop Martín “would be happy” to provide Messi with the Sacrament of Marriage if it were requested and held in an approved place.
 
“(T)he doors remain open and the truth is that the archbishop told me yesterday: If, when they return to Rosario next year for their vacations...want to receive the Sacrament of Marriage, it would be offered with pleasure,” he said.

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Little Rock, Ark., Jun 30, 2017 / 05:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When Moses smashed the stone tablets in Exodus 32, out of rage for the sins of his people, he used his bare hands.

But maybe a car would have made the task easier?

Michael Tate Reed, 32, yelled “Freedom!” as he plowed his car into a statue of the 10 Commandments placed outside the state capitol of Arkansas early in the morning of June 28, demolishing it.

The privately-funded monument, the product of a years-long heated debate about its constitutionality, had been up for fewer than 24 hours when Reed filmed himself destroying it.

Reed posted the video to his personal Facebook, where he also self-identifies as a born-again Christian and “Pentecostal Jesus Freak.”

Reed was caught in the act by an on-patrol police officer at the capitol and is being held in the Pulaski County Detention Center on charges of defacing an object of public interest, criminal trespassing and first degree criminal mischief, according to authorities.

It is his second alleged 10-Commandment-smashing offense.

Oklahoma authorities confirmed to The Associated Press that Reed is the same man who was arrested in October 2014 for destroying Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol with his car.

At that time, Reed self-identified as a Satanist and said that Satan had told him to smash the monument. He was charged with destruction of state property or improvements, indecent exposure, making threatening statements, reckless driving, and operating a vehicle with a revoked license in 2014.

In 2015, Reed wrote an apology for the act that published in a local Oklahoma paper, saying he was sorry and that he had had a psychotic break that drove him to destroy the monument.

"I am so sorry that this [is] all happening and I wished I could take it all back," Reed said in a letter to Tulsa World.

Arkansas state Senator Jason Rapert, who pushed for the monument’s construction, told local media that the incident could be a call to consider the state of mental health care in Arkansas, but that it has not yet been a proven defense for Reed’s most recent act.

Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson tweeted that “resorting to property destruction is never the answer to a policy disagreement”.

The American Civil Liberties Union had opposed the building of the Arkansas monument as well as other 10 Commandments monuments at state capitols around the United States. Its construction was also opposed by the Freethinkers Society and the Satanic Temple.

After the destruction of Arkansas’ monument, the ACLU has said that they “strongly condemn any illegal act of destruction or vandalism.”

“The ACLU remains committed to seeing this unconstitutional monument struck down by the courts and safely removed through legal means,” ACLU of Arkansas Executive Director Rita Sklar said.

Monuments of the 10 Commandments have attracted controversy in the past. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a monument of the 10 Commandments in Texas was constitutional, and other federal courts have been divided on other such monuments.

Rapert said Wednesday during a Facebook live news conference that he intended to have the Arkansas monument rebuilt.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Chris Helgren, Reuters

By Jean Ko Din

TORONTO (CNS) -- A new poll suggests more Canadians than ever believe religion does more harm than good, but even the pollsters disagree on what the numbers mean for the future of faith in the country.

Ipsos Public Affairs surveyed 1,001 Canadians online from March 20 to 23 and the results suggest more Canadians are moving away from formal religions.

About 51 percent of respondents agreed that "religion does more harm in the world than good." That's a seven-point increase from a similar survey in 2011.

"A couple of points of shift is not a big deal because that's all in margin of error, but when we have changes of seven points in six years ... that's a significant shift," said Sean Simpson, vice president of Ipsos Public Affairs.

Simpson told The Catholic Register, a Canadian Catholic weekly, that in a technological age where information is so easily accessed, Canadians have a "higher sensitivity" to news of religious radicals committing acts of violence and terrorism.

He also attributed the shift in public perception to the growing secularization of Western culture.

"If you go further along in the study, only 22 percent feel that it's important to their political thinking," Simpson said. "And it's only 29 percent among Catholics, which means that seven in 10 Catholics say it's not important to their political thinking. They are likely not supporting political parties based on those traditional values."

However, Reginald Bibby, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta who studies religion trends, said Canadians are much more complex than the survey reveals.

"By our standards, in terms of sociology of religion, all I'm saying is Ipsos has very loose items," he said. "That item about religion doing more harm than good ... our figure was 51 percent positive on that, so virtually the same figure."

Bibby explains that 51 percent in either direction can be understood as a 50/50 split and Canadians have been split on this particular statement for many years.

Bibby's data comes from research for a book he published in April called "Resilient Gods, Being Pro-Religious, Low Religious, or No Religious in Canada."

In his research dating to 1975, he found that a "solid core" of 30 percent of Canadians view religion as a central part of their lives. Another 30 percent reject religion, while the remaining 40 percent are somewhere in the middle.

Bibby said that depending on any number of social and cultural factors, the size of each group would shift slightly over the years. However, he believes religion is here to stay. With a steady increase in immigration, Bibby said, the "pro-religious core" in Canada is assured for the foreseeable future.

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Jean Ko Din writes for The Catholic Register, Toronto-based Canadian Catholic weekly.

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