Severe mental
illness reduces
culpability
Segutiecee ty lanaae pate di
ka besa the at his
someone who had just
been found insane —
meaning he did not know
the nature of his acts, or
that they were wrong —
could now be sentenced to
death.
against
Pecos eI ga hs 8
mission of all experts, did not have the
highest culpability.
Such severely mentally ill people
should not be eligible for execution. And
yet prosecutors continue to charge peo-
ple who have substantial mental health
Per artes beer Ling,
Brown pen talnete bara,
ratically, and over the Mayan
calendar, the book of Revelation, and
conspiracy theories. He left with his girl-
friend to live in the woods in an aban-
doned cabin, “eating bark off a tree and
drinking water out of a stream.” Brown
had stopped sleeping.
After Brown shot the trooper he took
his clothes off and fled into the woods.
He had no sane motive to do this. He
later said God told him to shoot the
trooper. bene sender we
Bane ypety ab a ratio:
and deliberate killer.
Arguably, he should have been found
i eattoot
defendants insane is that jurors are not
told that such confinement occurs ifa
Siigibe for py the atts penal Tie
tion would reme ths
essg.ey provide a alsa for de-
fendants who fell short of being found
not guilty Ups of insanity, but who
suffer from serious mental
illnesses such as schizophrenia or bi-
disorder. A te that, if
, the it would re-
ieee vs! 01d a aiaaa acne
with sever or
with bipolar disorder, for example, are
simply not the worst of the worst mur-
tencing to death severely mentally ill
people who cannot ae sith blamed for
their actions.
Garretts the lustice
Adefendant with the kind
of severe impairments
suffered by Russell Brown
should not even be eligible
for the death penalty. The
proposed legislation would
remedy this issue.
