Execution of the Mentally Impaired: Does It Violate the 8th Amendment?
Executing the mentally impaired,
Does it violate the 8th Amendment? The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In 1958, the Supreme Court decided in Trop v. Dulles (356 U.S. 86) that the interpretation of the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." Although Trop was not a death penalty case, abolitionists applied the Court 's logic to executions and maintained that the United States had, in fact, progressed to a point that its "standard of decency" should no longer tolerate the death penalty (Bohm, 1999). Mental illness can be described in a variety of ways. The American Heritage Dictionary (4th edit., 2000) describes it as: "Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual 's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma. Insanity or mental incompetency is a severe form of mental illness and is addressed separately by the legal system. Inmates who are insane, that is, so out of touch with reality that they do not know right from wrong and cannot understand their punishment or the purpose of it, are exempt from execution. The Supreme Court held in Ford v. Wainwright (477 U.S. 399 (1986)) that executing the insane is unconstitutional. However, if an inmate 's mental competency has been restored, he or she can then be executed. Inmates who are intellectually disabled (mentally retarded) also cannot be executed. Inmates, who are mentally ill, but not insane, have no such exemption. Connecticut exempts a
Does it violate the 8th Amendment? The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In 1958, the Supreme Court decided in Trop v. Dulles (356 U.S. 86) that the interpretation of the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." Although Trop was not a death penalty case, abolitionists applied the Court 's logic to executions and maintained that the United States had, in fact, progressed to a point that its "standard of decency" should no longer tolerate the death penalty (Bohm, 1999). Mental illness can be described in a variety of ways. The American Heritage Dictionary (4th edit., 2000) describes it as: "Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual 's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma. Insanity or mental incompetency is a severe form of mental illness and is addressed separately by the legal system. Inmates who are insane, that is, so out of touch with reality that they do not know right from wrong and cannot understand their punishment or the purpose of it, are exempt from execution. The Supreme Court held in Ford v. Wainwright (477 U.S. 399 (1986)) that executing the insane is unconstitutional. However, if an inmate 's mental competency has been restored, he or she can then be executed. Inmates who are intellectually disabled (mentally retarded) also cannot be executed. Inmates, who are mentally ill, but not insane, have no such exemption. Connecticut exempts a
References: used: 1."The execution of mentally ill offenders," Amnesty International, at: http://web.amnesty.org/ 2."Question of the death penalty," U.N. Commission on Human Rights, at: http://www.unhchr.ch/ 3.Jamie Fellner, "Should we execute killers with the mind of a child?," Chicago Tribune, at: http://www.hrw.org/ 4."U.S. execution of mentally retarded condemned. State legislatures urged to act," Human Rights Watch, 2001-MAR-20. 5."Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation," Human Rights Watch report, is at: http://www.hrw.org/ 6."The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation" (Human Rights Watch essay at: http://www.hrw.org/ 7.Anne Gearan, "Executing retarded is barred," Associated Press, 2002-JUN-21. 8.Ramsey Clark, "The tragedy of war as an end in itself," The Toronto Star, 2003-MAR-8, Page A9. 9."No to the death penalty," Community of Sant ' Egidio, 2010-JUL-22, at: http://nodeathpenalty.santegidio.org/