In an op-ed for USA Today, three retired generals call for systemic review of the status of veterans on death row nationwide and urge decision-makers in capital cases to seriously consider the mental health effects of service-related PTSD in determining whether to pursue or to impose the death penalty against military veterans. Calling DPIC’s new report, “Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty,” “a wake-up call for an issue that few have focused on,” Brigadiers General (Ret.) James P. Cullen, David R. Irvine, and Stephen N. Xenakis write that “[c]ountless veterans have endured violence and trauma that few others can fully imagine” but defense attorneys in capital cases “are often not adequately prepared to investigate and present” this evidence and prosecutors and judges often treat it dismissively. They say that, “at a minimum, when a judge or jury is weighing a person’s life or death, they should have full knowledge and understanding of that person’s life history. Veterans with PTSD — and, in fact, all those with serious mental illness at the time of their crime — deserve a complete investigation and presentation of their mental state by the best experts in the field.” Citing DPIC’s report, the generals discuss the cases of Andrew Brannan, James Davis, and John Thuesen, who suffered from combat-related PTSD but were sentenced to death without adequate consideration of their conditions. They contrast the often untreated “deeply debilitating” long-term wounds of combat PTSD to the physical wounds for which veterans do receive treatment. “PTSD can be treated,” they write, “but in one study only about half of the veterans who needed treatment received it.” They conclude with a call to action. “We should begin by determining the exact scope of this problem: Who are the veterans on death row? How could their military experience have affected their commission of a crime? How well were their disabilities investigated and presented in court? And what should be done when the system fails them? Veterans facing the death penalty deserve this assistance.” (Click image to enlarge.)
(J. Cullen, D. Irvine, and S. Xenakis, “Vets suffering from PTSD need our help: Column,” USA Today, November 11, 2015.) See New Voices and Mental Illness.
