MENTAL ILLNESS: President of the Tennessee Psychiatric Association Urges Halt to Death Penalty for Mentally Ill Defendants

In an op-ed in The Tennessean, Dr. Keith Caruso, President of the Tennessee Psychiatric Association, shared the rea­sons behind the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for those with severe mental illness.

He not­ed that in July 2020, the APA released a posi­tion state­ment aimed at pro­tect­ing those with severe men­tal ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ties, stat­ing: ​“There should be a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States until juris­dic­tions seek­ing to reform the death penal­ty imple­ment poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to assure that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, if used at all, is admin­is­tered fair­ly and impar­tial­ly in accord with the basic require­ments of due process.”

Caruso iden­ti­fied the APA’s pri­ma­ry points of con­cern that ​“include insuf­fi­cient atten­tion to mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of dimin­ished respon­si­bil­i­ty of offend­ers who were suf­fer­ing from men­tal dis­or­der or dis­abil­i­ty at the time of their offens­es, unfair­ness in post-con­vic­tion adju­di­ca­tion, and inhu­mane treat­ment of per­sons on death row.”

He explained that those with a men­tal dis­or­der or dis­abil­i­ty might have dif­fi­cul­ty com­mu­ni­cat­ing with or assist­ing their attor­ney, and at the time of exe­cu­tion, might not under­stand the nature and pur­pose of the punishment.

Caruso not­ed that ​“a num­ber of states are pur­su­ing leg­is­la­tion bar­ring the exe­cu­tion of per­sons with severe men­tal ill­ness, and the American Bar Association issued a white paper stat­ing that per­sons with severe men­tal ill­ness should be exempt from the death penalty.”