Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders With Mental Retardation

• NCJ Number: 188177
• Journal: Human Rights Watch, United States Volume: 13 Issue: 1(G) Dated: March 2001 Pages: 1-53
• Author(s): Rosa Ehrenreich; Jamie Fellner
• Date Published: March 2001
• Length: 53 pages
• Corporate Author: Human Rights Watch
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report presents a few of the compelling arguments against imposing capital punishment on persons with mental retardation.

Abstract

In keeping with international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances as inherently cruel and as a violation of the right to life and of the fundamental dignity of all human beings. Executing offenders who have mental retardation is particularly unconscionable. The death penalty is supposed to be restricted to those few criminals who are guilty of the worst crimes of violence and who are the most blameworthy. Persons with mental retardation, by virtue of their disability, do not qualify as among the most culpable offenders. They have a lifelong limited ability to reason and to navigate in the world. They have grave difficulties with communication, learning, logic, strategic thinking, and planning. They have problems with judgment, memory, attention, and with understanding consequences or abstract concepts. Whatever their degree of retardation, they have difficulty learning from experience and understanding causality. Because the death penalty is disproportionately severe, given the diminished culpability of those who have mental retardation, it does not serve the goal of retribution and the imposition of "just deserts." Neither do such executions deter others from committing capital crimes; persons with mental retardation are not deterred, because their disability prevents them from assessing potential outcomes from various courses of action. To ensure public safety, it is sufficient that dangerous mentally retarded persons be securely confined. Recommendations for abolishing capital punishment for mentally retarded persons target State legislatures, police investigators, prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, governors and other clemency authorities, and mental health professionals. 266 notes