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What Does it Take?

By Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing

Sita Diehl, Director of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) TN and a member of the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty, recently proposed that the Committee recommend legislation exempting people suffering with severe mental illness at the time of their crimes from the death sentence. This recommendation still allows for a guilty verdict and a sentence of life without parole, but it takes death off the table for a population of people who, like those with mental retardation, are less culpable for their crimes because of their diminished capacity.Unfortunately, the Committee chose to recommend that this issue be studied further rather than take decisive action now. During the Committee's discussion, the prosecutors on the Committee stated that the current system has mechanisms in place for dealing with people who have severe mental illness and that this recommendation was only creating more bureaucracy and more potential litigation...continue to full post

Full post as published by tcask:: on the road (to abolition) on January 12, 2009 (boomark / email).