Don't Execute Mentally Disturbed Killers

Humanist, Jan, 1999 by Michael B. Ross

   The death penalty is an absolute punishment. If it is to be imposed at all,
   it should be imposed on people whose sense of responsibility and judgment
   is such that they fully appreciated the seriousness of what they were
   doing.

These words by David Bruck, a lawyer who has represented numerous capital defendants, appeared in the International Herald Tribune on June 23, 1987. Most people not only agree with the sentiment expressed but believe that only the most cunning and culpable of criminals are executed in this country--that the mentally ill and mentally retarded are explicitly excluded. Far too often, however, they are wrong.

As things now stand, mentally disadvantaged defendants often have to rely on a defense referred to as "diminished capacity." This simply means that such defendants may have known right from wrong but did not have full control over their actions, resulting in an inability to refrain from acts that people of average abilities could resist or simply would not commit.

Two basic problems face capital defendants trying to prove diminished capacity in court. The first is the skepticism with which most people view such a defense. All people are assumed to be normal and fully responsible for their actions, so it is the defendants' burden to prove otherwise.

Many people mistakenly believe that they can just look at a defendant and tell if he or she has a significant mental disorder. Even when a competent psychiatrist has diagnosed a mental illness or mental retardation, juries tend to dismiss the diagnosis if the defendant "looks normal."

There are several reasons for this. First, there is a general lack of confidence in psychiatric testimony. Second, there is a pervasive feeling that psychiatrists testifying for the defense will give whatever diagnosis is desired--and that psychiatrists testifying for the state are somehow more credible and less likely to be "bought." Third, it is generally assumed that a person whose life is on the line will feign a mental disorder and be able to fool even the best-trained psychiatrist. And finally, even if the defendant is proven to be mentally disturbed, it is often felt that she or he is somehow "getting away" with the crime. These feelings present formidable obstacles for any mentally disadvantaged defendant to overcome.

The second basic difficulty with proving diminished capacity has to do with the nature of capital crimes themselves. Often these are terrible crimes of a disturbing and heinous nature, and the trials can become extremely emotionally charged, leading many jurists to ignore even clear cases of a mental disorder.

The U.S. Supreme Court has mandated that mental disorders are mitigating factors, but this has not prevented mentally disadvantaged people from ending up on death row. It is estimated that 10 percent of all current death-row inmates are mentally ill and another 10 percent are mentally retarded. That translates to more than 600 mentally disadvantaged defendants currently under sentence of death in this country today. Some have already been executed.

Varnell Weeks was executed in Alabama for murder. Weeks had been diagnosed as being severely mentally ill and suffering from a "longstanding paranoid schizophrenia." Psychiatrists testifying for both the defense and prosecution agreed that he suffered from pervasive and bizarre religious delusions. Weeks believed that he was God, that his execution was part of a millennial religious scheme to destroy humankind, and that he would not die but, rather, would be transformed into a giant tortoise and reign over the universe.

An Alabama judge acknowledged that Weeks believed he was God in various manifestations and that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered delusions. The judge's ruling went on to say that Weeks was "insane" according to "the dictionary generic definition of insanity" and what "the average person on the street would regard to be insane." However, the judge ruled that the electrocution could proceed because Weeks' ability to answer a few limited questions about his execution proved that he was legally "competent."

Morris Mason was executed in Virginia for murdering an elderly woman during an alcoholic rampage. She was burned to death after Mason had raped her, nailed her to a chair by the palms of her hands, and set the house on fire. Mason had a long history of mental illness and, prior to his arrest, had spent time in three state mental hospitals where he was diagnosed as mentally retarded and suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In the week before the killing, he had twice sought help from his parole officer for his uncontrollable drinking and drug abuse. The day before the crime, he had asked to be placed in a halfway house but no openings were available.

Johnny Frank Garrett was executed in Texas for the rape and murder of an elderly man. He was chronically psychotic and brain-damaged. One psychiatrist who examined Garrett described him as "one of the most psychiatrically impaired inmates" she had ever examined. Another said he had "one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect ... encountered in over twenty-eight years of practice."