Ending the Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness (How Recent Supreme Court Cases Interpreting Atkins v. Virginia Support a New Death Penalty Prohibition)
Josh Salzer | Vol. 22 | Online | Citation: Josh Salzer, Ending the Death Penalty for People With Severe Mental Illness (How Recent Supreme Court Cases Interpreting Atkins v. Virginia Support a New Death Penalty Prohibition), 22 U. Pa. J. Const. L. Online (2020).
This article argues that courts or legislatures should prohibit the execution of people with severe mental illness who were significantly impaired by their illness at the time of their crime in light of recent Supreme Court death penalty interpretation of Atkins. Defendants who were significantly impaired by severe mental illness at the time of their crime should not be eligible for the death penalty because they have sufficiently reduced culpability. This reduced culpability, as for defendants with intellectual disability in Atkins and juveniles in Roper v. Simmons, cannot be adequately accounted for in sentencing. A new prohibition should therefore be created and operate as a dispositive mitigating factor against imposing the death penalty.