Death Penalty for the Mentally Handicapped

Death Penalty for the Mentally Handicapped

Thesis statement: Individuals with severe mental illness should not be subject to the death penalty. Many countries in the world have continued to execute people with mental and intellectual disabilities, which is a violation of international standards. Countries such USA, Pakistan, and Japan urgently need to reform their criminal justice system because they expose many other individuals at risk. The international standards concerning the mentally handicapped are essential safeguards for vulnerable people in society (LaPrade & Worrall, 2020). The death penalty for the mentally disabled should be opposed, and countries that use capital punishment on vulnerable populations should be fully abolished.

Death penalty and mental health

An individual’s Mental illness makes them less morally culpable, which should be considered to spare an individual’s life. The court revealed that mentally handicapped individuals experience impaired cognitive judgments, sometimes interfering with their decision-making ability. Different bodies, such as the American Bar Association and the American Psychiatric Association, have advocated for the death penalty ban among people with mental health challenges. Mentally ill defendants lack a full understanding of their crime, making them mentally incompetent (Bessler, 2019). It is difficult for such defendants to stand trial or be found guilty because of insanity. Mental illness affects the ability of the defendant to defend themselves because cooperating with the jury’s perceptions and motives may cause danger to society if a negative outcome is experienced, such as a life sentence. In some situations, mentally ill defendants can be coerced to make false confessions because they do not clearly understand individual rights (LaPrade & Worrall, 2020). The court has not offered any protocols to be followed by people with mental illnesses, which enables the discriminatory application of a death sentence.

Mental Health America calls for a moratorium that highlights the use of the death penalty until the criminal justice system fully proves that the process for determining an individual is guilty by pursuing a defendant’s mental health first and ensuring that the basic due process is also applied in capital cases. Death penalties and mental health is an issues that the criminal justice system should investigate prior to the hearing proceedings. A defendant’s mental health matters a lot when executing the death penalty. Mentally incompetent defendants should offer themselves voluntarily for treatment. Forceful treatments to retain competency in a defendant are not allowed to make one competent to stand and face trial in court.