Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton (pic­tured) tes­ti­fied in state leg­isla­tive hear­ings on October 14 that Ohio should ban use of the death penal­ty against defen­dants who suf­fer from seri­ous men­tal ill­ness when they com­mit a cap­i­tal crime. Stratton, a Republican who was appoint­ed to the court in 1996 and served, fol­low­ing reelec­tion, until 2012, called the death penal­ty ​“inef­fi­cient, inef­fec­tive and a great bur­den on our soci­ety.” Stratton said that the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles and peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties because of their reduced cul­pa­bil­i­ty. She told the Ohio Senate Criminal Justice Committee that peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness­es have sim­i­lar­ly reduced cul­pa­bil­i­ty. ​“Do we as a soci­ety say we want to exe­cute some­one who has dimin­ished capac­i­ty and men­tal Illness?” Stratton asked the com­mit­tee. Last year, the Ohio Supreme Court Joint Task Force on the Death Penalty issued 56 reform rec­om­men­da­tions, includ­ing a ban on exe­cut­ing those with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. Stratton said the bill would apply to defen­dants diag­nosed with such seri­ous men­tal ill­ness­es as schiz­o­phre­nia, bipo­lar dis­or­der, and depres­sive and delu­sion­al dis­or­ders. The bill has bipar­ti­san spon­sor­ship and is also sup­port­ed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

(A. Johnson, ​“Don’t exe­cute men­tal­ly ill, law­mak­ers told,” The Columbus Dispatch, October 14, 2015.) See Mental Illness and Recent Legislation.

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