STUDIES: How Often Are Death Row Inmates Spared Because of Insanity?

In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court banned the exe­cu­tion of inmates who were insane. In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, Justice Rehnquist and Chief Justice Burger warned that the major­i­ty deci­sion ​“offers an invi­ta­tion to those who have noth­ing to lose…to advance entire­ly spu­ri­ous claims of insan­i­ty.” A new study has exam­ined cas­es since 1986 in which death row inmates filed claims of men­tal incom­pe­tence and found that the del­uge of spu­ri­ous claims has not mate­ri­al­ized. Of the 1,307 peo­ple the study con­sid­ered ​“Ford-eli­gi­ble,” that is, those whose cas­es reached the point at which a Ford claim could be filed, only 6.6% (86) filed claims of incom­pe­ten­cy. Of the cas­es decid­ed on the mer­its, 22% of the Ford claims were suc­cess­ful, a high suc­cess rate when com­pared to oth­er post-con­vic­tion claims in cap­i­tal cas­es, imply­ing non-friv­o­lous claims were being filed. A large major­i­ty (62.6%) of inmates whose claims of insan­i­ty were decid­ed in court had a well-doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, show­ing that rais­ing an insan­i­ty claim was legit­i­mate, even in many of the unsuccessful cases.

Examining suc­cess rates among dif­fer­ent racial groups, the authors found that African-American inmates were more than three times as like­ly to suc­ceed on Ford claims than white inmates. The authors sug­gest­ed this may be due to racial bias before and dur­ing cap­i­tal tri­als, result­ing in more men­tal­ly ill African-American defen­dants being found com­pe­tent to stand tri­al and being sen­tenced to death.

The authors also said their study sug­gest­ed that some of the suc­cess­ful incom­pe­ten­cy claims were actu­al­ly cas­es where the inmate should have been found incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al in the first place.

(J. Blume, S. Johnson, and K. Ensler, ​“Killing the Oblivious: An Empirical Study of Competency to be Executed Litigation,” 79 Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review _​_​_​(2013); DPIC post­ed April 8, 2014). See Mental Illness and Studies.