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"Purple Hearts On Death Row: War Damaged Vets Should Not Be Executed By the State"

By Douglas A. Berman

Thanks to a reference from Death Penalty Information Center, I just came across this commentaryby By Karl Keys and Bill Pelke which has the title that appears in the heading of this post.  Here are excerpts: Mental exhaustion. Battle fatigue. PTSD. Whatever it's called, many of our soldiers who served in wars over the years came home with combat-related mental illness, traumatized by the carnage and destruction they saw and experienced. Unfortunately, too many veterans' mental conditions have fueled criminal behavior resulting in their imprisonment.  Dating back to the Civil War, veteran incarceration rates increased after each conflict. This is not a small, marginal problem. Government statistics for the 1980s show that 21 percent of state prison inmates then were Vietnam veterans...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 15, 2009 (boomark / email).