Editing West Memphis Three (section)

====Appeal====
Echols' mental stability during the years immediately prior to the murders and during his trial was the focus of his appellate legal team in their appeal attempts. In his efforts to win a new trial, Echols, 27 at the time of the appeal, claimed he was incompetent to stand trial because of a history of mental illness. The record on appeal spells out a long history of Echols' mental health problems, including a May 5, 1992, Arkansas Department of Youth Services referral for possible mental illness, a year to the day before the murders.<ref name="The Commercial Appeal">{{cite web| url = http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2002/apr/21/case-lives-echols-seeks-new-trial/| title = The Commercial Appeal}}</ref> Hospital records for his treatment in Little Rock 11 months before the killings show a history of self-mutilation and assertions to hospital staff that he gained power by drinking blood, that he had inside him the spirit of a woman who had killed her husband, and that he was having [[hallucinations]]. He also told mental health workers that he was "going to influence the world."<ref name="The Commercial Appeal"/>

The appellate legal team argued that Echols did not waive his assertion that he was not mentally competent before his 1994 trial because he was not competent to waive it. To assist in the appeals process, Echols' appellate legal team retained a [[Berkeley, California]]-based forensic psychiatrist, Dr. George Woods, to make their case.<ref>[https://www.google.com/#hl=en&cp=22&gs_id=1v&xhr=t&q=george+woods+affidavit&qe=Z2VvcmdlIHdvb2RzIGFmZmlkYXZpdA&qesig=x8JP9oD_NNAwFulC1e7wdQ&pkc=AFgZ2tkKCrLJL-Gah6Ym1NST-Xj5fA-aJJc-_QUUbthyn6XdbIPD0sjwW1tdvo5rQeW1JhoYqiMazKArIzCXbvsu-uJ5WCPYzQ&pf=p&sclient=ps&fp=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&cad=b George Woods Affidavit], google.com; accessed October 5, 2015.</ref>

Echols' lawyers claimed that his condition worsened during the trial, when he developed a "psychotic euphoria that caused him to believe he would evolve into a superior entity" and eventually be transported to a different world. His psychosis dominated his perceptions of everything going on in court, Woods wrote.<ref name="The Commercial Appeal"/> Echols's mental state while in prison awaiting trial was also called into question by his appellate team.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}