Incarcerating and Executing the Mentally 111 237sanity is questioned prior to his or her execution, a psychologist is called upon to
conduct a competency-for-execution evaluation. Such an evaluation is requested
in order to assist the court in determining whether the inmate has a mental illness
which prevents him or her from understanding that he or she is going to be executed
and the reason why. There is oftentimes a great deal of skepticism associated with
the reliability of psychologists' clinical diagnoses of mental illness. For example,
in h'ord v, Wainwright (1986), although three separate evaluators found Ford to be
competent for execution, they all found him to be suffering from some sort of
mental illness; yet, they could not agree on his diagnosis (B. J. Winick, 1992). This
illustrates the fact that it is necessary but not sufficient for a death-row inmate to
have a mental disorder to be found incompetent. Examination of case law shows that
neither mental illness (Ford v. Waimwight, 1986; Garrett v. Collins, 1992) nor mental
retardation (Penry v. Lyncnigli, 1989) in and of itself renders a person incompetent
for execution.
Conducting competency-for-execution evaluations frequently poses a number
of moral and ethical issues for psychologists. Melton ct <?/., (1997) caution psy-
chologists to examine whether their own belief systems would interfere with their
objective assessment of an individual's competency for execution. Often, psychol-
ogists conducting such evaluations find themselves in a difficult position, given that
their expert opinion can lead directly to an individual's execution. Moreover, if a
psychologist finds a death-row inmate incompetent for execution, the individual's
life is not automatically spared. In fact, there have only been two cases in this coun-
try where a death-row inmate has been found incompetent for execution (Radelet
& Miller, 1992). In one such case, Singleton v. State (1991), upon the Court's ruling
of Singleton's incompetence, his death sentence was reduced to life in prison.
However, in the second case of its kind, Gary Alvord was found incompetent
for execution, yet remains on death row today (K. S. Miller & Radelet, 1993). This
case illustrates a second issue that is difficult tor many psychologists who encounter
death-row prisoners while working in the forensic arena. As in the case of Gary
Alvord, if an inmate is found incompetent, he or she is sent to a state mental hospital
to be restored to competency Thus, the primary responsibility of a psychologist
rendering treatment to a death-row inmate is to restore the inmate to competency
so that the state can execute him or her. As might be expected, the psychologist
often has ambiguous feelings about providing treatment under such circumstances.
Similarly, individuals within the field of psychology have mixed feelings about
the appropriateness of psychologists' involvement in capital cases. One such ar-
gument among those who believe that psychologists should not treat those found
incompetent to be executed pertains to weighing the costs and benefits of treat-
ment. Opponents of such intervention believe that it is more detrimental to restore
a death-row inmate to competency, since the result will be execution, than it is
to withhold treatment from that individual (Heilbrun, Radelet, & Dvoskin, 1992).
Second, those opposed to treating individuals found incompetent for execution