Upcoming Executions Raise Concerns about Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

The cas­es of two defen­dants fac­ing immi­nent exe­cu­tion raise con­cerns about the appro­pri­ate­ness of death sen­tences for those with severe men­tal ill­ness or sharply-lim­it­ing men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. Andre Thomas is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on April 5, 2023 in Texas, despite suf­fer­ing from men­tal ill­ness so acute that he cut out both of his eyes and ate one, claim­ing that it was nec­es­sary to pre­vent the gov­ern­ment from hear­ing his thoughts. Donald Dillbeck is sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Florida on February 23, even though he is inflict­ed with fetal alco­hol spec­trum dis­or­der accom­pa­nied by dis­abil­i­ties sim­i­lar to those the U.S. Supreme Court has found dis­qual­i­fy­ing for the death penal­ty (Atkins v. Virginia).

Thomas, who has been hear­ing voic­es since age 9 and attempt­ed sui­cide at 10, is ask­ing Texas for clemen­cy. His attor­ney described him as ​“one of the most men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers in Texas history.” 

Dillbeck’s lawyers have point­ed to test­ing that ​“indi­cat­ed wide­spread and pro­found neu­ro­log­i­cal dam­age through­out Mr. Dillbeck’s brain, with par­tic­u­lar abnor­mal­i­ty in the por­tions of the brain most respon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing plan­ning, mood, judg­ment, behav­ior, impulse con­trol and inten­tion­al­i­ty.” His exe­cu­tion would be the first in Florida since 2019 and comes when the gov­er­nor is seek­ing leg­isla­tive changes to make it eas­i­er to obtain death sen­tences. Dillbeck has also claimed that the length of time he spent on death row (30 years) amounts to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Nationally, the time between sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tion has tripled in the past 35 years. 

Ohio and Kentucky have passed laws exempt­ing the severe­ly men­tal­ly ill from the death penalty.