Sentencing



Sentencing

A mental or psychological disorder is a significant departure from the norm in the experience or behavior in the areas of thinking , feeling and behavior concerns. Another criterion for a diagnosis of mental disorder in addition to the deviation will also be mental suffering on the part of those affected. The sciences, which deal primarily with disorders of the psyche, the clinical psychology and psychiatry.

Between 5 to 10 percent of people, who are on death row have mental health problems and nearly 1,000 people have executed since 1977. At least 100 suffered from disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and brain injury. David Funchess and Wayne Felde were sentenced to death in the U.S. for crimes committed as a result of mental illness, disease caused by their participation in the Vietnam War. The health system of this country was too slow to assist them, but the justice system was too fast and did not hesitate to condemn them to death (Warner, 2002).

"The report we are presenting today is a disgrace," says Esteban Beltran, director of Amnesty International in Spain. "There is no scruples in the U.S., to condemn people to death who do not understand the sentence, which even under the influence of heavy medication at the time of being sentenced."

The report submitted on January 31 by Amnesty International, marks the beginning of a worldwide campaign for the U.S. to stop executing people with mental illness. In the last three years, some steps have been taken by the Supreme Court in this country to prevent executions of people with intellectual disabilities in children, but has not spread to adult people with mental illness (Landsberg, 2002).

Instead, this Court declared 15 years ago that "many prisoners on death row suffer severe mental disorders before committing their crimes and many other ...