This Note explores the contention that Ohio House Bill 136 and similar proposed bills with a diagnosis-based categorical approach to death penalty exemptions violate seriously mentally ill individuals’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by limiting the scope of eligible mental illnesses to a narrow subset of specified disorders. This Note also addresses additional feasibility issues regarding implementation of such bills. Since the Equal Protection Clause requires that state legislation treat all similarly situated individuals equally, capital defendants could successfully argue that there are a plethora of other symptomologies that would sufficiently inhibit one’s capacity to conform their actions to requirements of law or to appreciate the nature or wrongfulness of their conduct that are not included within the statutory text.9 This Note then examines potential solutions to these equal protection concerns and adopts a recommendation for states contemplating such legislation.
To read this Note, please click here: Unequal Protection: Challenges to Serious Mental Illness Exemptions from the Death Penalty
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