Do you believe it is acceptable to sentence someone suffering from a mental illness to death?

For example: if a mother murders her children because the voices in her head told her it was the only way to save them, should she be put to death? Or should she spend her life being treated in a mental facility?

Quoting Devil's Advocate:" Do you believe it is acceptable to sentence someone suffering from a mental illness to death? For example: ... [snip!] ... it was the only way to save them, should she be put to death? Or should she spend her life being treated in a mental facility?"

I abhor the death penalty on most situations and the one you are describing especially. I'm mentally ill, and I can only sympathize with the mother, though I haven't killed anyone.

I would be for her spending MANY years in INTENSIVE psychiatric treatment.

I think life in prison is much worst than death itself.

Hmm...Id probably look at it on a case by case basis. Like were they on medication and did they willfully go off of it? Or ever seek out help? If they were on medication did it stop working?

If there is diagnosed mental illness, then institutionalization should be what happens. I'm against the death penalty anyway because I believe that the point of prison should be rehabilitation. There are very few cases where I think that the death penalty is appropriate.

Mental institution. Too many people can claim mental illness though. Its not that hard to fake it.

Andrea Yates...she was unstable before it happened for a long time and had gotten help alot but they still left her alone with her children after she was showing signs of PPD again...she didn't get the death penalty. Idk..it would just depend on the severity of the illness to me I guess.

I have mental illness and I would rather them kill me if I killed my own children than be put in an institution.

This is difficult for me.

Had someone noticed early on that she needed help, (Or if she went for help knowing something wasn't right), lives could have been saved and she could have gotten the help that she needed.

On the other hand, who is to say that her condition (Even with help) won't get worse and she suddenly is a danger to not just herself but society as well.

What quality of life does someone have living in a padded room, not allowed to have communication with anyone, taking a pill every single day just to slowly fade out of existence ?

Quoting Tegan/Race/Lynox/Essyx mo:" Andrea Yates...she was unstable before it happened for a long time and had gotten help alot but they ... [snip!] ... signs of PPD again...she didn't get the death penalty. Idk..it would just depend on the severity of the illness to me I guess."

But she also was not institutionalized where she could get the help she deserved. She was imprisoned.

I'm against the death penalty.

But for someone with a mental illness who is unable to plead not guilty by reason of insany-- double no.

Mental institution. I'm not a big fan of the death penalty but on the other hand it is very easy to fake a mental illness. I just hate seeing people put to death.

Well in the specific scenario you gave, I think it needs to be LEGIT post pardum depression, because in a situation such as Andrea Yates, she legitimately had severe post pardum depression and in a case like that, I don't think death is justice.
But in a case like Susan Smith, who drowned her children but dumping her car with them in it and blamed it on a black man simply because her new boyfriend didn't like that she had children, NO, the woman should spend the rest of her life behind bars.
I don't think putting anyone to death does much.. I think most people spend the majority of their lives on death row anyway. I personally believe that some things are worse than death. A man who tortures a child or woman and murders them, or hell even a man, anyone at all, why put them to death and give them an easy exit? I think they should spend the rest of their lives becoming someone's play thing in prison.
I think having to pay the price of spending the rest of your life behind bars, with your days crawling by, is pretty tough. I wouldn't allow anyone convicted of an especially heinous crime should be allowed special privileges, though. Like, no working, no going outside, whatsoever.
I don't condone the death penalty. Killing someone isn't justice to me.
So, to answer the question simply, NO. I don't think killing someone will a mental defect is right, nor I do I believe killing someone in their right mind is right, either.

<blockquote><b>Quoting Back to Noob Status:</b>" I abhor the death penalty on most situations and the one you are describing especially. I'm mentally ... [snip!] ... be for her spending MANY years in INTENSIVE psychiatric treatment. I think life in prison is much worst than death itself."</blockquote>


 
I'm against the death penalty, especially under circumstances such as this.

DH and I are both for the death penalty. IMO there is no excuse for murder. There can't be rehabilitation for someone who murders another human being let alone their own children. Personally I believe in an eye for an eye. But that is just my two cents.

Quoting ♡Sarah♡ + 2:" Mental institution. I'm not a big fan of the death penalty but on the other hand it is very easy to fake a mental illness. I just hate seeing people put to death."

Even for someone with a documented mental illness it's incredibly hard to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. You have to be able to prove that in the moment you committed the crime you were not in your right mind.