Kentucky Legislature Passes Bill Prohibiting Death Penalty for People with Serious Mental Illness

The Kentucky State Senate has giv­en final leg­isla­tive approval to a bill that would make the Commonwealth the sec­ond U.S. state to bar the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with seri­ous mental illness. 

On March 25, 2022, the Republican-dom­i­nat­ed body vot­ed 25 – 9 to pass HB 269, a bill that pro­hibits the death penal­ty for defen­dants diag­nosed with any of four spec­i­fied men­tal health dis­or­ders. The mea­sure over­whelm­ing­ly passed the House on February 9 by a vote of 76 – 19. If signed by Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, Kentucky would join Ohio in exempt­ing severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants from capital punishment.

Under the bill’s pro­vi­sions, defen­dants who had active symp­toms and a doc­u­ment­ed diag­no­sis of schiz­o­phre­nia, schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, bipo­lar dis­or­der, and/​or delu­sion­al dis­or­der at the time of the offense would no longer be sub­ject to the death penal­ty. Defendants seek­ing to bar cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion under the bill are required to file a motion in the tri­al court at least 120 days before their sched­uled tri­al date. If the court deter­mines that the defen­dant meets the statute’s require­ments, the case will pro­ceed to a non-cap­i­tal tri­al. Unlike a sim­i­lar mea­sure passed in Ohio in 2021, Kentucky’s law would not apply to those already sen­tenced to death in the state.

Bipartisan sup­port was cru­cial to pass­ing the law in Kentucky’s Republican-con­trolled leg­is­la­ture. The 21 co-spon­sors of the bill includ­ed both Democrats and Republicans. Conservative leg­is­la­tors cit­ed their pro-life views in sup­port of the bill. ​“You can’t say we’re pro-life and then say ​‘except.’ There’s no excep­tion, all life has to be pre­cious,” Sen. Stephen Meredith (R‑Leitchfield) said. Sen. Julie Raque Adams (R‑Louisville) not­ed that men­tal­ly ill defen­dants would still face con­se­quences for their crimes. ​“It in no way absolves defen­dants of legal respon­si­bil­i­ties for their crimes, they can still be tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to lengthy prison terms includ­ing life with­out parole,” she said. 

Critics of the bill argued that it was unnec­es­sary because juries are already per­mit­ted to weigh evi­dence of men­tal ill­ness in their sen­tenc­ing delib­er­a­tions. Republican Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, a death penal­ty pro­po­nent, opposed the mea­sure as a ​“slip­pery slope for get­ting rid of the death penalty.”

A pre­vi­ous bill to pro­hib­it the exe­cu­tion of pris­on­ers with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness passed the state House in 2021 but nev­er received a vote in the Senate. Rep. Chad McCoy, the bill’s lead spon­sor and Republican House major­i­ty whip, rein­tro­duced the bill this year but lim­it­ed the ill­ness­es that would exempt a defen­dant from the death penal­ty and added the require­ment that the defen­dant must have been pro­fes­sion­al­ly diag­nosed with one of the spec­i­fied con­di­tions. The revi­sions, he said, were nec­es­sary to gar­ner sup­port from key sen­a­tors. ​“Here’s the change they need­ed, and here’s what is does: You now have to have a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry and diag­no­sis from a men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al, and we define that express­ly in the bill,” McCoy said.

Similar bills have been con­sid­ered by oth­er state leg­is­la­tures in recent years. In 2021, Ohio banned the death penal­ty for defen­dants who were severe­ly men­tal­ly ill at the time of the offense. This leg­isla­tive ses­sion, Republican law­mak­ers in Florida, South Dakota, and Tennessee intro­duced bills ban­ning the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness. The Florida bills died in com­mit­tee. The South Dakota bill passed the Senate by a 21 – 14 vote but failed in the House by a vote of 25 – 43. The Tennessee bills have not advanced as of March 28. 

Since 2017, sim­i­lar bills have also been intro­duced in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia. The bills in Colorado and Virginia became moot when leg­is­la­tures in those states abol­ished the death penalty.