Recent Decisions in Capital Cases Reflect Growing Understanding of How Serious Mental Illness Affects Behavior and Culpability

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the impact of men­tal ill­ness is keen­ly felt on death row: at least two in five peo­ple exe­cut­ed have a doc­u­ment­ed seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and research sug­gests that many more death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers are undi­ag­nosed. A nation­al major­i­ty, 60% of Americans, oppos­es exe­cut­ing peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. In the past two decades, sci­ence and med­i­cine have con­tributed to a much bet­ter under­stand­ing of how seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, which refers to men­tal, behav­ioral, or emo­tion­al dis­or­ders that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impair a person’s abil­i­ty to func­tion in dai­ly life, can affect behav­ior. In light of these devel­op­ments, the Ohio and Kentucky leg­is­la­tures have passed laws bar­ring the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with a seri­ous men­tal health con­di­tion such as schiz­o­phre­nia or bipo­lar dis­or­der at the time of their crime, and the California leg­is­la­ture passed a law bar­ring the exe­cu­tion of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who have become per­ma­nent­ly men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent. Legislators in sev­er­al oth­er states have intro­duced sim­i­lar ​“SMI” bills. 

The new laws result­ed in new sen­tenc­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers whose men­tal health con­di­tions con­tributed to their crime. An Ohio judge ruled on May 6 that Stanley Fitzpatrick, who was sen­tenced to death in 2002 for three mur­ders, could not be exe­cut­ed due to his seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. A state expert and a defense expert agreed that Mr. Fitzpatrick suf­fered from a qual­i­fy­ing con­di­tion before, dur­ing, and after the mur­ders. Ohio’s SMI law requires a diag­no­sis of either schiz­o­phre­nia, schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, bipo­lar dis­or­der, or delu­sion­al dis­or­der. Mr. Fitzpatrick was resen­tenced to life with­out parole and will be housed in a men­tal health treat­ment facil­i­ty for at least a year per the judge’s recommendation. 

Decisions on seri­ous men­tal ill­ness exemp­tions are pend­ing in at least two oth­er Ohio cas­es. On May 3, a court set a date of August 5 for a death penal­ty eli­gi­bil­i­ty hear­ing for Chad Doerman, accused of killing his three sons in June 2023. Mr. Doerman plead­ed not guilty by rea­son of insan­i­ty, and court records stat­ed that he had been exam­ined by two experts who agreed he expe­ri­enced seri­ous men­tal ill­ness at the time of the offense. He will be exam­ined by a state expert before the hear­ing. Ashford Thompson, con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 2008 killing of police offi­cer, is also await­ing a deci­sion after the state con­firmed in December that Mr. Thompson would be eval­u­at­ed regard­ing his asser­tion of delusional disorder. 

Last fall, Ohio courts used the state’s SMI law to resen­tence two men to life in prison and bar the death penal­ty in an upcom­ing tri­al. A Kentucky court exempt­ed a man from the death penal­ty in an upcom­ing tri­al as well; how­ev­er, Kentucky’s SMI law is not retroac­tive, so a per­son already on death row who had a seri­ous men­tal ill­ness at the time of their crime could still face execution. 

Additionally, Oklahoma courts recent­ly ruled two death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed under Supreme Court prece­dent, find­ing that they did not have a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the rea­son for their exe­cu­tion. On May 13, a judge ruled that Wade Lay​’s schiz­o­phre­nia, delu­sions, and para­noia made him inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. On March 28, a tri­al court found James Ryder incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed based on decades of doc­u­ment­ed schiz­o­phre­nia. Both men expressed a belief that their death sen­tence was part of a wide-rang­ing polit­i­cal con­spir­a­cy. In both cas­es, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said that the state would seek to reestab­lish com­pe­tence so that the men could be put to death, despite doc­u­ment­ed eth­i­cal prob­lems with that prac­tice. Attorneys for the two men said that their men­tal health con­di­tions had been dete­ri­o­rat­ing for years and were unlike­ly to improve. 

In 2006, the American Bar Association, American Psychological Association, and American Psychiatric Association released a joint res­o­lu­tion call­ing for peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness­es to be exempt from the death penal­ty. Their joint report found that seri­ous men­tal ill­ness inhibits a person’s abil­i­ty to rec­og­nize the nature of his own con­duct, con­form his con­duct to the law, assist in his own defense, or under­stand the pun­ish­ment of death. Serious men­tal ill­ness also increas­es the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tion by mak­ing a per­son more sus­cep­ti­ble to false con­fes­sions. Organizations includ­ing the United Nations and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) have joined the call to bar the death penal­ty for peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing seri­ous mental illness. 

Note: This arti­cle was updat­ed on June 3, 2024 to clar­i­fy California’s SMI bill.