Testa gave the example of a schizophrenic who commits murder in a state of paranoia but may not qualify for the insanity defense if they knew their actions were against the law. In one such case in , a man who murdered a friend who would not lend him money had a history of hearing voices, had been hospitalized 13 times, had attempted suicide multiple times, and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In deciding that case, Lundberg Stratton quoted a U. The proposed legislation largely functions the same from state to state.
The defendant can be diagnosed before or after arrest, but the disease must be shown to have been active when the crime was committed. Once deemed competent to stand trial, defendants suffering from one of the disorders listed by the legislature could raise the issue at a pretrial hearing, where a judge would decide whether they qualify for protection from the death penalty if convicted.
If the judge says no, the defense could raise the issue again at trial, and a jury would likely decide the matter. Those found to have a serious mental illness could still face life in prison if guilty, but would avoid the death penalty. Opposition From Prosecutors Many of the prosecutors who have spoken out against the bills said there are enough legal options and Supreme Court precedents to protect people who have a severe mental illness.
For example, people who do not fit the legal definition of insanity and are found guilty of a capital crime can try to avoid the death penalty at sentencing by presenting their mental disorder as a mitigating factor. But mental health professionals and defense attorneys say bias against the mentally ill means evidence intended to convince a jury to reduce a sentence may have just the opposite effect.
In her plea from the bench for a state standard for sentencing people with mental illness to the death penalty, Lundberg Stratton acknowledged it would be a challenge. But psychiatrists say anyone with a disorder covered by the bills has a severe mental illness. As some conditions, like bipolar disorder and depression, become more widely accepted by society, people may underestimate how serious they are.
There is no categorical ban on the execution of people with mental illness. Legislatures in numerous states have considered bills creating such an exclusion, but none has yet been enacted. The U. 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.
Conversely, the courts allow people with mental illness to be executed if they understand the punishment that awaits them and why they are being put to death. Similarly, MHA is opposed to the practice of medicating defendants involuntarily in order to make them competent to stand trial. MHA believes that our current system of fact-finding in capital cases fails to identify who among those facing a possible death penalty actually has a mitigating mental health condition.
MHA believes that whenever a possible death sentence is invoked, states should make available to defense counsel, at the time that counsel first is in contact with the accused, the resources to enable counsel to retain a qualified expert to evaluate the mental state of the accused at the time of the offense, at the time of pre-trial preparation, and, if necessary, at the time of trial. MHA applauds the U. Simmons that declared the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional. Impulsiveness, poor judgment, and lack of self-control are characteristics of childhood and are the reasons we limit many of the rights of minors.
The age, maturity, mental status, and any history of abuse or trauma of a youthful offender should always be considered in deciding his or her punishment. MHA considers the execution of people for crimes they committed as children to be unjust and inhumane, serving no principled purpose, and demeaning to our system of justice, and thus endorses the Court's holding that the juvenile death penalty constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment.
For the same reason, this position statement takes the next step, in positing that regardless of whether the defendant is able to show the causation required by the insanity defense, no one should be threatened or put to death while experiencing a serious mental illness.
MHA urges that affiliates and advocates advocate a moratorium on executions, fight to spare the lives of people with mental illness accused of capital crimes by prohibiting use of the death penalty for all persons with serious mental illness, and seek to maximize due process protections and assistance by legal counsel to avoid discrimination and unfairness in capital cases,.
Admitted inability to make fair death determinations led Illinois first to declare a moratorium in and then to abolish the death penalty in In the last decade, seven states have abolished the death penalty: New Jersey , New York , New Mexico , Illinois , Connecticut , Maryland , and Nebraska In addition, support for this position can be seen in the declining number of death sentences and executions nationwide, both of which reached their lowest point since the s this past year.
And even two current Supreme Court Justices, Justices Breyer and Ginsburg, have recently questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty. See Glossip v. Gross, S. Different mental disorders can affect a defendant's case in different ways. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, a resource widely used by mental health professionals, defines "mental disorder" as.
The legal system separates three types of mental disorders: intellectual disability, mental illness, and insanity.
All may play a role in a defendant's case, but they are distinct conditions that are handled differently by the legal system because they affect an individual's reasoning, and therefore culpability, differently. Intellectual disability is characterized by "significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills.
This disability originates before the age of Virginia that individuals with intellectual disabilities cannot be executed because they are categorically less culpable than other criminals.
Similar reasoning was used when the Court later held that executing juveniles was unconstitutional.
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