A new Kentucky bill says criminals with history of serious mental illness would not get the death penalty option if convicted of a capital crime.
A Kentucky Senate committee passed a plan that would take the death penalty off of the table if a criminal had a history of serious mental illness.
Senate Bill 154, sponsored by St. Matthews Republican, Julie Raque Adams is poised for a vote in the full Senate following Thursday’s hearing.
Executive Director of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition testified in favor of the bill, saying of those with mental illness, “They cannot think through the reality of what they are doing and the consequence of those actions.”
“It seems to me tha,t regardless of what you think about the death penalty, the last thing that any of us wants to do is execute someone who is not culpable for his or her actions due to an illness that was not preventable”, said Senator Julie Raque Adams.
According to the Department of Corrections website, there are currently 27 people on Kentucky's Death Row including one woman.
Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, Kentucky has only executed 3 people. The last to die by lethal injection was Marco Allen Chapman, just more than 12 years ago.
Opponents at Thursday’s hearing included the Commonwealth Attorneys' Association who question whether the bill leaves adequate guarantees on who makes the mental health diagnosis and if it could impact current death row inmates, not just cases moving forward as supporters insist.
Senator Adams says that while she would like to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky, that is not her motivating factor behind this bill. She has tried to get this plan through the General Assembly for three years and hopes that this session will “be the charm”.
If she is to succeed she must get it through a full Senate vote, through the House and to the Governor’s desk by April 15th.