Blogpost #3: Inside The Death Row

Did you know someone who has a mental illness? according to my research, over 44 million people suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder and over 5 million people were disabled by this and this research is cases of mental illness in U.S. only. Can you imagine that almost 1/2 of our population in the whole world may suffer from this illness?

Let's go back to the topic, According to the article: "Mental Illness on Death Row" by Scott Panetti, its said that 5-10% of death row inmates suffer from mental illness and since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation was executed only in United States

Why those people in the death row suffer from mental illness? In my opinion, They experiencing trauma and they are afraid to know that tomorrow may be their last day to live. Can you imagine when someone tell you that tomorrow will be your last day because tomorrow you will be execute. Well that was what those people in the death row thinking about.

Having a mental illness is a huge problem for some country that has a death penalty. The execution may be delay because of those who have a mental illness. Here is one of the example of a guy who have been executed 40 years after the murder that he was committed.

A man name Gary Alvord is a Florida inmate who has a longest spent time on the death row. He is 66 years old and suffered from schizophrenia, a kind of mental disorder, and he was sentence to death on April 9,1974. According to Bill Sheppard, “Gary is a product of a sick system. He was a living example of why we should not have the death penalty.... I would love for the state of Florida to tell us how much money they wasted trying to kill a guy they couldn't kill. The death penalty is getting us nothing but broke.” He was sent to the hospital to have a treatment but the doctors refuse to treat him. Those doctors thinking that he will be executed so why we should treat him?



In my conclusion about my research, I agree about what Bill Sheppard said that Gary is a living example of why we should remove the death penalty. This is my second reason for the death penalty to be remove from the law in all of the country.