Some legal and psychiatric experts have concluded that veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder should be ineligible for execution. In an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, mental health experts Drs. Hal Wortzel and David Arciniegas wrote, “The tragedy of the wounded combat veteran who faces execution by the nation he has served seems to be an avoidable one, and we, as a society, should take action to ensure that it does not happen.” A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that about 300,000 of the 1.64 million military members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan had post-traumatic stress disorder. The study also found that only 53% of those with such a diagnosis had received treatment in the previous 12 months. In 2008, the New York Times reported 121 cases in which veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been charged with killings. In Texas, an Iraq veteran named John Thuesen is on death row for shooting his girlfriend and her brother in 2009. Thuesen suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and his attorneys have argued he would have received a life sentence if the jury had been fully informed of his illness.

Prior to the murder, Thuesen had checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, but was released after a few days, despite his parents’ wishes that he be treated further.

(B. Grissom, “Considering War’s Toll in Debate on Death Row,” Texas Tribune, December 26, 2013). See Mental Illness and Studies.

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