Resources on Severe Mental Illness and Death Penalty
American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project
DPIC Report: Battle Scars
Military Veterans and the Death Penalty (Features information on PTSD and other combat-related mental health problems)
Overview
The U.S. Supreme Court has said a defendant’s mental illness makes him or her less morally culpability and must be taken into consideration as an important reason to spare his or her life. However, as was initially the case with intellectual disability and young age, the Court has not barred the death penalty for those with serious mental illness. When the Court prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled and for juveniles, it found that they were members of identifiable groups who have diminished responsibility for their actions and hence should not be considered the worst and most culpable defendants. Many mental health experts believe that people with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may have similar cognitive impairments that interfere with their decision-making. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association, among others, have called for a ban on the death penalty for those with severe mental illness.
Some defendants are so mentally ill as to lack all understanding of their crime and its consequences and may be considered mentally incompetent. Such individuals may be unfit to stand trial or be found not guilty by reason of insanity. If they are convicted and become incompetent while on death row, they cannot be executed, under earlier Supreme Court precedent. However, most people with mental illness — including many with severe mental illness — are not mentally incompetent.
Mental health issues have broad impact in death-penalty cases. One in ten prisoners executed in the United States are “volunteers” — defendants or prisoners who have waived key trial or appeal rights to facilitate their execution. Mental illness also affects defendants’ decisions to represent themselves, their ability to work with counsel, and jury’s perceptions of their motives and whether they pose a future danger to society if they are sentenced to life in prison.
At Issue
There are at least three hurdles to excluding the severely mentally ill: 1. Unlike age and intellectual ability, it is difficult to define the class of mentally ill defendants who should be exempted and to determine whether their illness affected their judgment when they offended. 2. States have so far been reluctant to adopt such bans, though society continues to evolve in terms of its understanding of mental illness. 3. The membership of the Supreme Court has shifted since some of the earlier exemptions were decided. Nevertheless, the prior decisions could serve as important precedents, capable of being extended to the mentally ill.
What DPIC Offers
DPIC has tracked the various state legislative efforts to address the mental illness issue. It frequently highlights instances in which mentally ill defendants receive unfair death-penalty trials, face execution, or have been granted clemency or other relief. It also gathers statements from relevant leaders in the mental health field regarding this issue.
News & Developments
News
Apr 03, 2023
NEW VOICES: Former Florida Prison Psychiatrist Criticizes the Execution of Mentally Ill Prisoners
Dr. Joseph Thornton, a psychiatrist who formerly treated death row prisoners as the medical director of a Florida maximum security prison, called for an end to the death penalty for those with severe mental illness: “We should not be executing anyone, let alone the sick and the broken,” he said. “As someone with over 40 years’ experience seeing patients with serious mental illness who are stigmatized, ostracized and blamed for their symptoms, I believe that recovery care, not ostracization, respects life and saves lives.”
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Mar 15, 2024
Women’s History Month Profile Series: Sarah Belal, Executive Director of Justice Project Pakistan
This month, DPIC celebrates Women’s History Month with weekly profiles of notable women whose work has been significant in the modern death penalty era. The second entry in this series is Sarah Belal, founder and executive director of Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a nonprofit organization in Lahore, Pakistan.
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Jan 08, 2024
Oklahoma Court Stays Scheduled Execution Pending Evaluation of Seriously Mentally Ill Prisoner
On December 22, 2023, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued a 100-day stay of execution to carry out a mental competency hearing for James Ryder, who was scheduled to be executed on February 1, 2024. Mr. Ryder’s attorneys have argued for years that he is not competent to face execution, citing long standing mental illness that has worsened throughout his incarceration. Several psychologists have diagnosed Mr. Ryder with paranoid schizophrenia and concluded he is not competent to face execution. “Having reviewed the evidence, we find the matter should be…
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Dec 21, 2023
Former Death Row Prisoner Craigen Armstrong Pioneers “Vital” Mental Illness Treatment Program in L.A. Jail
A new story by the L.A. Times highlights former California death row prisoner Craigen Armstrong’s instrumental role in building a peer-prisoner mental health treatment program in the Los Angeles Twin Towers Correctional Facility, an effort which has helped hundreds of prisoners with severe mental illness. While awaiting retrial, Mr. Armstrong established the “mental health assistant” role to support and treat fellow prisoners, and has developed training materials for jails and prisons across the country to replicate his program’s success.
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Nov 16, 2023
After “Due Process Disaster,” Texas Death Row Prisoner Whose Appeal Was Lost is Resentenced and Eligible for Parole
A death-sentenced prisoner whose appeal was lost for thirty years was resentenced to life with parole on November 14, 2023, when the Harris County, Texas District Attorney’s office said it is no longer pursuing the death penalty. Syed Rabbani, a Bangladeshi national, has been on death row since 1988 for a fatal Houston shooting. Mr. Rabbani filed his appeal in 1994, but it remained pending in the Harris County Court system until 2022, when the Harris County District Clerk’s Office rediscovered the filing among 100+ other ‘forgotten’ cases. Although severely…
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Nov 02, 2023
Under Recent State Legislation, Courts in Ohio and Kentucky Rule Four Men Ineligible for Execution Due to Serious Mental Illness
Though the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution forbids the death penalty for a person who is “insane” at the time of execution, it has never held that the execution of people with serious mental illness is unconstitutional. Experts have found that two in five people executed between 2000 and 2015 had a mental illness diagnosis such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or PTSD. Since 2017, at least eleven states have attempted to strengthen protections for vulnerable prisoners by introducing bills barring the execution of those with serious mental illness…
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Oct 05, 2023
World Psychiatric Association Releases Report Opposing the Death Penalty for People with Mental Illness or Development and Intellectual Disabilities
In July 2023, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) released its report and position statement on mental health and the death penalty. The issues addressed in the report include: the imposition of the death penalty on prisoners with mental illness or developmental and intellectual disabilities, the overrepresentation of death-sentenced prisoners who have been socioeconomically marginalized, and the role of psychiatrists in death penalty cases.
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Sep 29, 2023
Federal District Court Finds Scott Panetti Not Competent for Execution
On September 28, 2023, the Western District Court of Texas ruled that the state cannot execute Scott Panetti (pictured), a death row prisoner with a decades-long history of serious mental health issues and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Despite a state expert conceding Mr. Panetti’s serious mental illness, Texas argued that he is competent to face execution because he has “some degree” of rational understanding. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled, however, that “[Mr.] Panetti is not sane enough to be executed” and that he “lack[s] a rational understanding of the…
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Sep 28, 2023
Guantanamo Bay Judge Rules 9/11 Capital Defendant Mentally Incompetent to Stand Trial
On September 21, 2023, a military judge in Guantanamo Bay ruled that Ramzi Bin al Shibh, one of five defendants in the 9/11 case for whom the death penalty is being sought, is mentally incompetent to stand trial. Mr. Bin al Shibh, who has been detained for 21 years, will remain in custody at Guantanamo as authorities attempt to treat the post-traumatic stress disorder caused when he was forced to undergo “enhanced interrogations” by the U.S. government.
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Sep 07, 2023
9/11 Victims’ Family Members, Members of Congress Urge Biden Administration to Abandon Plea Negotiations with Guantanamo Detainees
Family members of some of the victims of 9/11 have asked the Biden Administration to abandon current plea negotiations with Guantánamo detainees that would remove the possibility of death sentences for the men accused of planning the 9/11 terror attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants have been held for more than twenty years, first at CIA black sites where they were subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques” and then at Guantánamo, but none has proceeded to trial. The request came after family members were notified by the Pentagon on August…
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Sep 05, 2023
Sole Woman on Tennessee Death Row, Age 18 at Time of Crime, Raises New Appeal Based on Youthfulness
Attorneys for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a motion on August 30 to re-open her appeals based on a recent decision from the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 2022, the Court ruled in State v. Booker that mandatory life sentences in homicide cases are unconstitutional when imposed on juveniles, drawing on U.S. Supreme Court precedent that held that juveniles are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure, and generally less culpable than adults. Ms. Pike’s attorneys argue that Booker’s reasoning applies to all youthful defendants, not…
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