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Death Penalty and Mental Illness: Families of Victims Speak out at National Convention; 'Double Tragedies' Report Released

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For the first time, families of murder victims have joined with families of persons with mental illness who have been executed to speak out against the death penalty.Double Tragedies, a report being released today at a special session on the first day of the annual convention of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), calls the death penalty "inappropriate and unwarranted" for people with severe mental disorders and "a distraction from problems within the mental health system that contributed or even directly led to tragic violence."The report calls for treatment and prevention, not execution. It is available online at www./nami.org/doubletragedies.The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in cases involving defendants with mental retardation (Atkins v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Lethal Injection on July 07, 2009 (boomark / email).