12/17/2017 Cabezas and Thissen: Death Penalty for Mentally III Di 2 | Ci ity Viewpoint | com
Cabezas and Thissen: Death Penalty for Mentally Ill
Defendants?
That's not justice, argue mental health professionals
By DAMIEN CABEZAS and RHONDATHISSEN 8hrsago (0)
In recent years, policymakers have begun taking important steps in addressing how
our criminal justice system approaches individuals with mental illness who commit
crimes. As our understanding of the factors which lead people with mental illness to
commit crime grows, “jail diversion” (http://bit.ly/2BeX3UB) and other programs
designed to divert people with mental illness into treatment instead of incarceration
are being implemented nationwide, as well as in communities across the
commonwealth (http://bit.ly/2ATmqia). However, much more remains to be done
to reform Virginia’s approach to the way it treats individuals with severe mental
illness in its criminal justice system.
An important proposal that would contribute to this reform has been considered by
the General Assembly during its last two sessions: a bill to ban the use of the death
penalty for people with severe mental illness. The bill would replace the death
penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole for individuals who had
active symptoms of a severe mental illness at the time of their offense. This is a
much-needed reform, since, surprisingly, individuals with severe mental illness can
still be sentenced to death and executed under Virginia law.
http://w it \d-thissen-death-penallty-f tally-ill ticle_5124e1a4-e1e...
113.
12/17/2017 Cabezas and Thissen: Death Penalty for Mentally III Di 2 | Ci ity Viewpoint | com
Severe mental illness is a subset of mental illness that includes the most serious
disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. To be considered a severe
mental illness, the condition must last for extended periods of time and significantly
interfere with a person’s major life activities, such as working, interacting with
others or caring for oneself. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that
4.2 percent of U.S. adults live with a severe mental illness (http://bit.ly/2vnQGeN);
this equates to more than 300,000 adults with severe mental illness in the
commonwealth.
Despite our growing understanding of severe mental illness and its consequences,
there are no protections from the death penalty for those individuals whose disorder
was pre-sent at the time of the offense. As a result, they continue to be sentenced to
death and executed. One such individual was Adam Ward, who was executed by the
State of Texas in 2016 despite recognition by Texas state courts that he had lived
with severe mental illness “his entire life” and “was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
and placed on lithium as early as age four” (http://bit.ly/20dSIDH).
As mental health professionals, we strongly believe that individuals like Adam Ward
should not be sentenced to death. We know firsthand that individuals with severe
mental illness may, when experiencing a crisis, have difficulty using rational
judgment; operate under strong paranoid and delusional thoughts that prevent
them from fully understanding what is real and what isn’t; or be unable to fully
control their impulses. This is all relevant when deciding whether someone should
receive society’s ultimate punishment.
That these defendants continue to be sentenced to death is even more surprising
considering that individuals with intellectual disability and juveniles were exempted
from the death penalty by the U.S. Supreme Court more than a decade ago. The
Court said that intellectual disability and youth are characterized by impairments
that diminish a person’s culpability even though they “do not warrant an exemption
from criminal sanctions.” Although intellectual disability and severe mental illness
are different conditions, they bring very similar impairments, and we must treat
equally those who live with either of these conditions.
http:/A it \d-thissen-death-penallty-f tally-ill ticle_5124e1a4-e1e...
2/3
12/17/2017 Cabezas and Thissen: Death Penalty for Mentally III Di 2 | Ci ity Viewpoint | com
This reform is all the more necessary because misconceptions about severe mental
illness and violence cloud our approach to criminal defendants with these diagnoses.
Instead of recognizing their conditions for what they are — impairments — juries,
judges, and the general public often exhibit an “irrational prejudice against people
with mental illness,” a phenomenon that New York Law School Professor Michael
Perlin has labeled “sanism” (http://bit.ly/1FjhDil ).
These prejudices may include the idea — unsupported by empirical evidence — that
people with mental illness are inherently dangerous. This belief is particularly
concerning in death penalty cases. Indeed, studies have shown
(http://bit.lv/2gRS694) that capital jurors sometimes erroneously — and
troublingly — consider evidence of mental illness aggravating instead of mitigating.
This means that juries may confuse the legal standard and think mental illness
should increase someone’s punishment when it really is only supposed to be
considered to decrease punishment. This should trouble all of us, and make clear
that the only remedy is a categorical exclusion from the death penalty.
We urge the General Assembly to revisit this issue in its 2018 session. We must
provide to individuals with severe mental illness the same protections we afford
those with intellectual disability, and we need to recognize that their impairments
make them undeserving of the ultimate punishment.”
Cabezas is CEO of Horizon Behavioral Health and Thissen is executive
director the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Virginia (NAMI
Virginia), on whose board of directors Cabezas serves. They wrote this
column for The News & Advance.
http:/A it \d-thissen-death-penallty-f tally-ill ticle_5124e1a4-e1e... 3/3
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0