Former Tennessee Attorney General Supports Mental Illness Exemption

In an op-ed in the Memphis news­pa­per, The Commercial Appeal, for­mer Tennessee Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody (pic­tured) has expressed his sup­port for a bill that would exempt peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness from the death penal­ty. Cody, who lat­er served as a mem­ber of the American Bar Association’s Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team, said that ​“as soci­ety’s under­stand­ing of men­tal ill­ness improves every day,” it is ​“sur­pris­ing that peo­ple with severe men­tal ill­ness­es, like schiz­o­phre­nia, can still be sub­ject to the death penal­ty in Tennessee.” 

In his op-ed, Cody describes how cas­es with seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants dif­fer from oth­er cap­i­tal cas­es: ​“In 2007, an ABA study com­mit­tee, of which I was a mem­ber, con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment of Tennessee’s death penal­ty laws and found that ​‘men­tal ill­ness can affect every stage of a cap­i­tal tri­al’ and that ​‘when the judge, pros­e­cu­tor and jurors are mis­in­formed about the nature of men­tal ill­ness and its rel­e­vance to the defendant’s cul­pa­bil­i­ty, trag­ic con­se­quences often fol­low for the defendant.’ ” 

Cody also draws on his expe­ri­ence as the state’s top pros­e­cu­tor, say­ing, ​“As a for­mer Tennessee Attorney General, I under­stand how hor­rif­ic these crimes are and how seri­ous­ly we must take cap­i­tal cas­es. … But in light of our increased under­stand­ing of men­tal ill­ness, I believe that for those with doc­u­ment­ed men­tal ill­ness of the most severe form at the time of their crime, the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment should be life in prison without parole.” 

Tennessee is one of at least sev­en states in which leg­is­la­tors have intro­duced bills that would exempt those with severe men­tal ill­ness from the death penal­ty. Numerous legal and men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the American Bar Association, American Psychiatric Association, and National Alliance on Mental Illness, sup­port exclud­ing defen­dants with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness from the death penalty.