An arti­cle in the Fall 2005 edi­tion of the mag­a­zine Amnesty International exam­ines whether men­tal­ly ill defen­dants should be exempt­ed from the death penal­ty, espe­cial­ly in light of the Supreme Court’s rul­ings exempt­ing juve­nile and men­tal­ly retard­ed offend­ers. The arti­cle quotes Ohio Northern University law pro­fes­sor Victor Streib: ​“The gen­er­al pub­lic too often assumes that only the seri­ous­ness of the crime is rel­e­vant to the pun­ish­ment, but the (Supreme) Court has repeat­ed­ly held that both the serious(ness) of the crime and the char­ac­ter and back­ground of the defen­dant must be con­sid­ered in the sen­tenc­ing deci­sion. If cer­tain men­tal­ly ill defen­dants think and act like juve­niles or the men­tal­ly retard­ed, then they should be exclud­ed from death row.” 

Estimates of the per­cent­age of peo­ple on death row with men­tal ill­ness vary wide­ly, and var­i­ous ill­ness­es rang­ing from para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia and post-trau­mat­ic stress syn­drome to bi-polar dis­or­der and depres­sion could be includ­ed in the def­i­n­i­tion of men­tal ill­ness. Joshua Marquis, an Oregon dis­trict attor­ney and strong sup­port­er of the death penal­ty, acknowl­edged the close tie between men­tal ill­ness and the death penal­ty: ​“The vast major­i­ty of peo­ple on death row suf­fer from a men­tal dis­or­der of some kind,” though he would not favor a broad exemp­tion.

The American Bar Association’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities has estab­lished a task force exam­in­ing the issue. The pro­pos­als devel­oped by this task force have won endorse­ments from orga­ni­za­tions such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. In dis­cussing the ABA’s work on this issue, New York attor­ney and task force mem­ber Ronald Tabak stat­ed, ​“We are not try­ing to excuse the mis­con­duct of these peo­ple. If we were try­ing to do that, we would­n’t allow them to be pun­ished at all. (But) the extent of blame­wor­thi­ness, the extent to which they can be held among what’s some­times called ​‘the worst of the worst,’ is dimin­ished by their men­tal ill­ness.”

(Dan Malone, ​“Cruel and Inhumane: Executing the Mentally Ill,” Amnesty International, Fall 2005, p.20 – 23). See Mental Illness.

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