Tennessee could save an esti­mat­ed $1.4 – 1.89 mil­lion per year by adopt­ing a ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness, accord­ing to a new report by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project. The report said a severe men­tal ill­ness death-penal­ty exclu­sion ​“could result in cost sav­ings [because] a sub­set of indi­vid­u­als who cur­rent­ly could face expen­sive cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions and decades of appeals would become inel­i­gi­ble” for cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion. As a result, ​“their tri­als and appeals would be sig­nif­i­cant­ly trun­cat­ed, while still result­ing in guilty ver­dicts.” The study pro­ject­ed statewide costs based upon its review of the death-row pop­u­la­tion from Shelby County, Tennessee, the nation’s 13th largest coun­ty death row, and the results of com­pre­hen­sive cost stud­ies from oth­er juris­dic­tions. Based on the 67 death sen­tences imposed in Shelby County between 1977 and 2017, the study esti­mat­ed that approx­i­mate­ly 15% of death-row pris­on­ers had been diag­nosed with a severe men­tal ill­ness, which includes schiz­o­phre­nia, schizoaf­fec­tive dis­or­der, bipo­lar dis­or­der, delu­sion­al dis­or­der, or major depres­sion. If the same per­cent­age of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers across the state had severe men­tal ill­ness, the study said, 28 pris­on­ers would have been exempt­ed from Tennessee’s death penal­ty since 1977. The report based its cost esti­mates on a 2008 Urban Institute cost study of Maryland’s death penal­ty — con­sid­ered one of the most rig­or­ous of the state death-penal­ty cost stud­ies con­duct­ed across the coun­try. That study found that death-penal­ty cas­es cost about $1.9 mil­lion more than non-cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es. Using that esti­mate, the report said, elim­i­nat­ing the 28 cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions of severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants would have saved Tennessee $54.8 mil­lion over the last 40 years, or an aver­age of $1.4 mil­lion per year. Mental Health America esti­mates that 20% of death-row pris­on­ers have seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, the report said, and using its esti­mate of the preva­lence of severe men­tal ill­ness, Tennessee’s aver­age annu­al sav­ings would be even high­er, at $1.89 mil­lion. Because no data were avail­able on cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in which seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants were not sen­tenced to death, the report did not cal­cu­late the poten­tial addi­tion­al cost sav­ings from decap­i­tal­iz­ing those cas­es. Tennessee is one of sev­er­al states con­sid­er­ing a men­tal ill­ness exemp­tion from the death penal­ty, and was select­ed for the study because it pro­vides detailed infor­ma­tion on all first-degree mur­der cas­es since 1977. In 2017, for­mer Tennessee Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody expressed his sup­port for a men­tal ill­ness exemp­tion, say­ing, “[a]s 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.”

The ABA Death Penalty Due Process Project has been the lead­ing voice in sup­port of the ABA’s 2006 res­o­lu­tion seek­ing to exempt from the death penal­ty those whose capac­i­ty or judg­ment are sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired as a result of severe men­tal dis­or­ders or dis­abil­i­ty. Under its lead­er­ship, the ABA issued a white paper in 2016 reit­er­at­ing its sup­port for a men­tal ill­ness exemp­tion. The ABA has elim­i­nat­ed fund­ing for the due process project from its fis­cal year 2019 budget.

(Potential Cost-Savings of a Severe Mental Illness Exclusion from the Death Penalty: An Analysis of Tennessee Data, ABA Death Penalty Due Process Review Project, June 2018; Lorelei Laird, Study: Mental ill­ness exemp­tion to death penal­ty would save Tennessee more than $1 mil­lion a year, ABA Journal, June 22, 2018; Adrian Mojica, Study: Banning death penal­ty in severe men­tal ill­ness cas­es would save state $1.4M year­ly, Fox17 News, Nashville, June 22, 2018.) See Mental Illness and Studies.

Citation Guide