KENTUCKY ALLIANCE for the SERIOUSLY MENTALLY ILL EXCLUSION ACT
House Bill 237
An act relating to serious mental illness
Precludes seriously mentally ill defendant from being sentenced to death
for trials starting after enactment of Act
82% of Kentuckians oppose sentencing severely mentally ill people to death
Serious intellectual disability: A defendant with a serious intellectual disability cannot
be executed because serious intellectual disability reduces culpability and is not of the
person’s choosing. Currently, KRS 532.135 sets up a pretrial procedure for a judge to
consider all of the evidence and make the determination whether the defendant meets
the statutory definition of serious intellectual disability. This procedure has been in
place since 1990.
Seriously mentally ill: House Bill 237 sets up an analogous pretrial procedure to
determine whether a defendant is seriously mentally ill. If it is proven to a judge that the
defendant is seriously mentally ill then the defendant cannot be subject to a death
sentence. The defendant can be sentenced to any other penalty authorized for a capital
offense, including life without parole.
Growing National Consensus: Prohibiting execution of seriously mentally ill defendants
is called for by important national mental health and legal leaders
= The National Alliance on Mental Illness https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-
Health-Public-Policy/Death-Penalty
= The American Psychiatric Association policy on Diminished Responsibility in Capital
Sentencing (2014)
= American Psychological Association (2006)
= The American Bar Association, Recommendation and Report on the Death Penalty and
Persons with Mental Disabilities (2006)
https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/Death Penalty Representation/2006_am_122a.pdf
Culpability of those with serious mental illness is diminished: People whose mental
processes are distorted by serious mental illness have reduced individual culpability.
They are not responsible for the fact of their own serious mental illness. Serious mental
illness is not of the person’s choosing.
The proposed bill is narrow and protection of society is insured:
= It does not provide that everyone who has a mental illness should be exempt
from capital punishment. Rather it considers the degree and type of mental
illness.
= It only applies to those defendants whose trials commence after enactment of
the legislation.
= It specifically excludes from the exemption those diagnosed with conditions that
are manifested primarily by repeated criminal conduct or attributable solely to
the acute effects of the voluntary use of alcohol or other drugs.
= Unlike the insanity defense, the proposed bill only precludes the penalty of
death, and so protection of society through incapacitation is unimpaired.
= Life without parole remains a possible sentence for those who are found
seriously mentally ill.
‘82% OF KENTUCKY VOTERS OPPOSE THE DEATH PENALTY
FOR PERSONS WITH SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS.
‘undecided
Support
+ oppece
Unsseaeo
QUESTION: Do you support or oppose the death penalty for persons with severe mental
illness?
SUPPORT OPPOSE UNDECIDED
STATE 11% 82% ™%
REGION SUPPORT OPPOSE UNDECIDED
Louisville Metro 1% 88% 5%
Lexington/Blue Grass 11% 85% 4%
Northern Kentucky 11% 81% 8%
Eastern Kentucky 12% 78% 10%
Western Kentucky 14% 78% 8%
‘SEX SUPPORT OPPOSE UNDECIDED
Men 16% 80% 4%
Women 6% 84% 10%
AGE SUPPORT OPPOSE UNDECIDED
18-34 8% 86% 6%
35-49 10% 83% ™%
50-64 12% 80% 8%
65+ 13% 81% 6%
PARTY REGISTRATION SUPPORT OPPOSE UNDECIDED
Democrat 10% 85% 5%
Republican 12% 79% 9%
Independent 10% 82% 8%
This poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida from December 12 through December 15, 2018. A total of
625 registered Kentucky voters were interviewed statewide by telephone. Those interviewed were randomly selected from a phone-matched
Kentucky voter registration list that included both land-line and cell phone numbers. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter registration by county.
The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than #4 percentage points. This means that there is a 95
percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if all voters were surveyed. The margin for error is higher for any subgroup,
such as a gender or party grouping.
Americans oppose the death penalty for persons with mental illness
A November 2014 poll by Public Policy Polling found that Americans oppose the death penalty for persons with
mental illness by a margin of 2 to 1. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they opposed the death penalty for
persons with mental illness, while only 28% favored it. Opposition was consistent across all political parties, with a
majority of Democrats (62%), Republicans (59%), and Independents (51%) all indicating they opposed the death
penalty for the mentally ill, and across all regions of the country. See
https://drive.google.com/file/d/OB1LFfr8lqz_7RDJBZZA2NGJzWG8/view
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