A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the New York Times called for greater atten­tion to be paid by courts to inmates on death row with severe men­tal ill­ness: ​“The death penal­ty sys­tem fails to take ade­quate account of severe men­tal ill­ness, whether at tri­al, at sen­tenc­ing or in post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings,” the paper wrote. The edi­to­r­i­al praised Governor John Kasich of Ohio for grant­i­ng a two-week reprieve to Abdul Awkal on June 5 just pri­or to his sched­uled exe­cu­tion. However, the Times said the the Ohio courts should have assumed the respon­si­bil­i­ty to review Awkal’s men­tal com­pe­ten­cy before his exe­cu­tion. An Ohio tri­al judge recent­ly found there was enough evi­dence to jus­ti­fy a review of Awkal’s san­i­ty, but said he could not hold a hear­ing imme­di­ate­ly because wit­ness­es were not avail­able and he did not have the pow­er to stay the exe­cu­tion. The Times con­clud­ed, ​“This is yet anoth­er rea­son the penal­ty should be abol­ished and fur­ther evi­dence of the grave injus­tices com­mit­ted in this system.”

The edi­to­r­i­al point­ed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has expressed con­cerns about exe­cut­ing an inmate who ​“may under­stand that he is on death row because of a heinous crime but may, nonethe­less, be delu­sion­al in believ­ing that he is to be exe­cut­ed for a non­sen­si­cal or unre­lat­ed rea­son.” Awkal believes he is on death row because he angered the CIA.

(“A Stay of Execution,” New York Times, edi­to­r­i­al, June 7, 2012). See Mental Illness and U.S. Supreme Court. Read more Editorials. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Mental Illness.

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