People with Mental Illnesses Should Not Die

People With Mental Illness Should Be Exempt from the Death Penalty by: Courtney People that are mentally ill or people that do not know the difference between right and wrong are more likely to commit violent crimes. Over sixty people with mental illness or retardation have been put to death since 1983 in the United States alone (Death). It is estimated that between five and 10% of people on death row are severely mentally ill. It has been shown that almost all people on death row have brain damage from an illness or trauma, while a large amount of the others have been through severe physical and or sexual abuse (Death). People with mental illness should not face the death penalty because killing them does not make anything any better, they don't always know the difference between right and wrong, and it is not their fault that they are mentally ill.
The first reason that people with a mental illness should not be executed is because it does not reduce violence or illness (Sheffer). There are no benefits from executing people. One may think that it does, but if the crime was committed by someone who was mentally unstable like a bipolar person, it could have been a random act of violence that they would have not done otherwise if not mentally ill. People may think that it will bring a sigh of relief knowing that the person who committed the crime is not out on the streets of alive in anyway so they are not given the chance to do the crime. But there is a difference between a sane person committing a crime and a mentally ill person committing a crime. The difference is that a sane person knows that what they are doing is wrong but a mentally ill person does not. Everyone makes mistakes in life some bigger than others. Yes, they should be punished, or at least helped to make sure they do not do it again. But killing them is like doing the crime two times. It also never brings the person they killed back (Sheffer). The death of the person responsible for the