A Jackson County, Mississippi judge has sen­tenced Scotty Lakeith Street (pic­tured), a cap­i­tal defen­dant suf­fer­ing from chron­ic para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after his cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing jury did not reach a unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing ver­dict. The sen­tence is anoth­er in a series of notable cas­es in which jurors pre­sent­ed with evi­dence of men­tal ill­ness have spared severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants the death penal­ty. Street was con­vict­ed mur­der­ing a retired spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher, stab­bing her 37 times. His lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence from fam­i­ly mem­bers, care­givers, and men­tal health experts of his life­long his­to­ry of ​“errat­ic” behav­ior and what two psy­chi­a­trists called his ​“chron­ic and severe” men­tal ill­ness. Family tes­ti­mo­ny detailed his repeat­ed men­tal health hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, with one sis­ter tes­ti­fy­ing ​“Scotty’s been insti­tu­tion­al­ized so much, it’s beyond my count.” A men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al who treat­ed Street tes­ti­fied that as a result of the effects of his schiz­o­phre­nia, he need­ed to live in a group home with the ser­vices of a care­giv­er. Witnesses described some of Street’s schiz­o­phre­nia-induced bizarre behav­ior, includ­ing putting plas­tic bags on his head ​“to keep his brain from leak­ing out,” swal­low­ing nails, paint­ing his body, run­ning naked in pub­lic, and tying a Coke bot­tle to his gen­i­talia. A poll released in December 2014 found that Americans oppose the death penal­ty for peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness by more than a 2 – 1 mar­gin. That has been reflect­ed in a num­ber of high-pro­file jury ver­dicts in the last few years in cas­es involv­ing severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants. James Holmes, a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill and delu­sion­al man who killed twelve peo­ple in an Aurora, Colorado movie the­ater, and Joseph McEnroe, who mur­dered 6 mem­bers of his girl­friend’s fam­i­ly near Seattle, Washington, were sen­tenced to life when mul­ti­ple jurors in their cas­es believed their men­tal ill­ness made the death penal­ty an inap­pro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment. Juries returned unan­i­mous life sen­tences for men­tal­ly ill Dexter Lewis in the stab­bing deaths of five peo­ple in a Denver bar and Christopher Monfort in the mur­der of a Seattle police offi­cer. An April 2017 study of 21st cen­tu­ry exe­cu­tions revealed that 43% of the pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed since the turn of the cen­tu­ry had received a men­tal ill­ness diag­no­sis at some point in their lives. In 2012, Mississippi exe­cut­ed Edwin Turner, a men­tal­ly ill man with a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness: his great-grand­moth­er and grand­moth­er were com­mit­ted to state hos­pi­tals and his moth­er attempt­ed sui­cide twice. A Florida man, John Ferguson, also diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, was exe­cut­ed in Florida on August 5, 2013, despite report­ed­ly hav­ing expe­ri­enced severe hal­lu­ci­na­tions since 1965. This year, leg­is­la­tion has been intro­duced in sev­en states to bar the death penal­ty for severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defendants.

(WLOX Staff, ​“Scotty Street sen­tenced to life in prison for mur­der of retired teacher,” WLOX​.com, July 27, 2017; T. Carter, ​“Scotty Lakeith Street sen­tenced to life in prison for killing retired Hurley school teacher,” Gulflive​.com, July 27, 2017.) See Mental Illness.

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