Bill prohibiting death penalty for mentally ill heads to governor’s desk

A bill to prohibit the death penalty for convicted killers if they suffer from a serious mental illness is headed to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.

Members of the Ohio House of Representatives passed the bill Thursday, a week after it cleared the Ohio Senate.

As previously reported, House Bill 136 spares a person convicted of aggravated murder from being sentenced to death if they are diagnosed with a specific mental illness: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and delusional disorder. The person would then be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It also lets someone on death row be resentenced if such a diagnosis can be proven in court.

Ohio has not executed anyone on death row since DeWine took office in January 2019.

This story was republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license.