2 Death Sentences recently reduced due to mental illness

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I am wondering when Damiens attorneys will put this into action:

Death Sentence and Conviction of Mentally Ill Tennessee Man Reversed
On March 7, 2008, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and death sentence of Richard Taylor. The court's ruling grants Taylor a new trial due to a variety of constitutional errors at his original trial. These errors include the denial of his constitutional right to counsel at a pre-trial competency hearing, the failure of the trial court to hold a competency hearing during the trial, and the failure of the trial court to appoint advisory counsel. Taylor, who is severely mentally ill, was permitted to represent himself at trial with little questioning of his competency. At his 2003 trial, Taylor represented himself without advisory counsel and presented no evidence towards his defense.

Cassandra Stubbs, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s North Carolina-based National Prison Project, stated, “The decision by the Court of Criminal Appeals rights the terrible injustice of a death sentence imposed against Richard Taylor, who faced his capital trial – while mentally ill, likely incompetent, and forcibly medicated – without the benefit of counsel. By recognizing the importance of Mr. Taylor’s right to counsel, including the right to standby counsel, the Court firmly established critical protections for mentally ill defendants who face capital charges.”

Additional background information about this case can be found here.
(ACLU, Press Release March 11, 2008). See Mental Illness and Representation.

Florida Supreme Court Reduces Death Sentence of Mentally Ill Defendant
The Florida Supreme Court reduced the death sentence for Ryan Green to life without parole because he suffered from schizophrenia and was not able to fully appreciate the consequences of his actions. Green was sentenced to death in 2006 for the murder of a retired Pensacola police sergeant. The jury that considered his case voted 10-2 for death. The presiding judge, who makes the sentencing decision in Florida, imposed a death sentence despite his conclusion that in the time leading up to the crime Green was in a "psychological, emotional and anti-social free fall into an abyss" and "fully immersed in a drowning pool of mental illness." The Supreme Court overturned the sentence finding substantial and uncontroverted evidence of the defendant's mental illness.

At his trial, Green testified that before he shot the officer he shot a bull, and that the animal had stood up and said, "I love you." Green then approached the officer, who was out for a walk near his home and asked for directions. The letter "A" on the officer's University of Alabama ball cap was, to Green, the sign of the Antichrist, he testified. "Green testified that God motivated him to kill Hallman," the court wrote. "He felt God put him there, on that day, to kill Hallman because Hallman was the Antichrist."
(Pensacola News Journal, Jan. 31, 2008).