Mental Illness

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 DPI Offers

DPI 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.