AI Questions Executions of Mentally Ill
by TChris
A report released today by Amnesty International asks whether current constitutional caselaw is adequate to safeguard the mentally ill from execution. If it is categorically wrong to execute children or the severely retarded, is the execution of a mentally ill convict consistent with contemporary standards of decency?
If the diminished culpability associated with youth and mental retardation render the death penalty an excessive punishment when used against offenders from those categories, what about people suffering from serious mental illness or impairment other than retardation, such as serious brain damage, at the time of the crime? Should they not also be ineligible for execution?
The question is made timely by the large percentage of mentally ill offenders on death row and by the criminal justice system's emphasis on punishment, rather than treatment, of the mentally ill. Yet judges too frequently discern no constitutional barrier to killing the mentally ill.
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