ByĀ Julia Harte and Jim Forsyth
U.S. military veterans make up about 10 percent of inmates on death row and courts are not doing enough to consider post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a mitigating factor in sentencing, a study released on Tuesday said.
About 300 of the roughly 3,000 inmates on America’s state and federal death rows are military veterans and the majority suffers PTSD from serving in the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars, according to the study from the Death Penalty Information Center, which is opposed to capital punishment but whose data is used by those on both sides of the debate. The study was based on data from states holding half the U.S. death row population.
Defense lawyers frequently fail to realize when their client is a veteran, according to the report’s author, Richard Dieter.
“If you have intellectual disabilities you can’t get the death penalty, if you’re under 18 you can’t get the death penalty. With PTSD, you can get the death penalty and sometimes it can be used against you,” Dieter said.
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