Position Statement 54: Death Penalty and People with Mental Illnesses
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Policy Position
- Our current system of criminal justice inadequately addresses the complexity of cases involving criminal defendants with mental illnesses. Therefore, Mental Health America calls upon states to suspend using the death penalty until more just, accurate and systematic ways of determining and considering a defendant’s mental status are developed. [1]
- Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had a severe mental disorder or disability that significantly impaired their capacity (a) to appreciate the nature, consequences or wrongfulness of their conduct, (b) to exercise rational judgment in relation to conduct, or (c) to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law. A disorder manifested primarily by repeated criminal conduct or attributable solely to the acute effects of voluntary use of alcohol or other drugs does not, standing alone, constitute a mental disorder or disability for purposes of this provision.[2]
- Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had significant limitations in both their intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills, resulting from mental retardation, dementia, or a traumatic brain injury.[3]
- Mental Health America believes that mental illnesses should always be taken into account during all phases of a death penalty case. Moreover, the assessment of competency to stand trial as well as competency to be executed should be conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals, including professionals with expertise in the defendant’s particular mental illness.
- Mental Health America is opposed to the practice of having a psychiatrist or other mental health professional treat a person in order to restore competency solely to permit the state to execute that person, and Mental Health America opposes the practice of medicating defendants involuntarily in order to make them competent to be executed.
- Research studies have demonstrated that a persistent pattern of racial disparities exists in the implementation of the death penalty. African Americans defendants are four times more likely to receive the death sentence than white defendants[4]. African Americans persons are also less likely to receive mental health treatment. Mental Health America believes that these discrepancies are linked, at least in part, to the pervasive effects of racism in American society and thus serve as an independent reason to oppose the death penalty.
Background
Over the past thirty years, the number of people with mental illnesses and other mental disabilities on death row has steadily increased.[5] Although precise statistics are not available, it is estimated that 5-10 percent of people on death row have a serious mental illness.[6] Mental Health America believes that mental illnesses can influence an individual’s mental state at the time he or she commits a crime, can affect how “voluntary”and reliable an individual’s statements might be, can compromise a person’s competence to stand trial and to waive his or her rights, and may have an effect upon a person’s knowledge of the criminal justice system.
The process of determining guilt and imposing sentence is necessarily more complex for individuals with mental illnesses. A high standard of care is essential with regard to legal representation as well as psychological and psychiatric evaluation for individuals with mental illnesses involved in death penalty cases. Mental Health America believes mental illnesses should always be taken into account during all phases of a potential death penalty case. Moreover, the assessment of competency to stand trial as well as competency to be executed should be conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals, including professionals with expertise in the defendant’s particular mental illnesses.
Some states require a prediction of future dangerousness in order to impose a death sentence. However, research has shown predictions of future dangerousness to be unscientific and frequently inaccurate. Therefore, such predictions are highly suspect as a basis on which to impose the death penalty. Moreover, there is a danger that the wholly unwarranted perception that mental illnesses are associated with violence could bias such predictions. In fact, research shows that people with mental illnesses pose no greater risk of violence than the average person.[7] Unfortunately, however, the misperceived link between mental illnesses and violence drives both legal policy and criminal justice system practice with respect to people with mental illness.
In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986) that "the reasons at common law for not condoning the execution of the insane -- that such an execution has questionable retributive value, presents no example to others, and thus has no deterrence value, and simply offends humanity -- have no less logical, moral, and practical force at present. Whether the aim is to protect the condemned from fear and pain without comfort of understanding, or to protect the dignity of society itself from the barbarity of exacting mindless vengeance, the restriction finds enforcement in the Eighth Amendment." 477 U.S. at 400. However, people with mental illnesses can be executed if they understand the punishment that awaits them and why they are being put to death. This ruling has prompted some states to provide psychiatric treatment to offenders with mental illnesses on death row in order to “restore their competency.” Consistent with the code of ethics of the American Medical Association,[8] Mental Health America is opposed to the practice of having a psychiatrist or other mental health professional treat a person in order to restore competency solely to permit the state to execute that person. Similarly, Mental Health America is opposed to the practice of medicating defendants involuntarily in order to make them competent to be executed. Great care must be taken to assure informed consent for treatment / no treatment options.
Mental Health America believes that our current system of fact-finding in capital cases fails to identify who among those convicted and sentenced to death actually has a mental illness. Thus, there is reason to believe that individuals with mental illnesses are being executed without the criminal justice system knowing of the existence of that illness and, therefore, without the requisite consideration of whether that mental illness may be a mitigating factor in these cases. Therefore, Mental Health America calls upon states to suspend use of the death penalty until more just, accurate and systematic ways of determining a defendant’s mental status are developed. This position supports the American Bar Association’s (ABA) call for a moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty because, in its judgment, “fundamental due process is systematically lacking”in capital cases.[9]
Juveniles and the Death Penalty
Mental Health America applauds the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 1, 2005 ruling
in Roper v. Simmons that declared the juvenile death penalty unconstitutional.
Young people under age 18 should not be held to the same standard of culpability
and accountability for their actions as adults. Impulsiveness, poor judgment,
and a lack of self-control are frequently 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. Mental Health America
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." Effective Period
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[1] Mental Health America previously advocated against the application of the death penalty to juveniles and adopts the logic of the United States Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) which declared that practice unconstitutional.
[2] Amnesty International. USA: The execution of mentally ill offenders. Recommendations of the American Bar Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Task Force on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty. 2006
[4] Dieter, Richard. The Death Penalty
in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides. Death Penalty
Resource Center. 1998
[5] The National Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty. Fact Sheet: Mental Competency and the Death Penalty. Available: http://www.ncadp.org/facts.html
[7] Steadman,
H., Mulvey, E., Monahan, J., Robbins, P., Appelbaum, P., Grisso, T., Roth,
L., Silver, E. (May 1998). Violence by People Discharged From
Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Facilities and by Others in the Same Neighborhoods. Archives
of General Psychiatry, (55).
[8] American Medical Association.
D-140.979 Moratorium on the Imposition of the Death Penalty: “Our
American Medical Association will actively disseminate its opinion regarding
physician non-participation in legally authorized executions”. (Res.
5, A-03).
[9] American Bar Association. Death Penalty Moratorium. 1997, www.abanet.org/moratorium/resolution.html
Page last updated: 09/20/2007