Giving Compass' Take:

· This story from The Marshall Project looks at a case in South Dakota and addresses the national debate over whether or not the death penalty should be banned for the mentally ill.

· What alternatives are there for the mentally ill instead of the death penalty? How should this debate be determined? 

· Check out this article to read more about the death penalty and The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Aleesha DeKnikker was grocery shopping, her phone set to silent, when the voicemail from her mother, Carol Simon, came in: “Oh, it’s just Mom. Your brother has really lost it, Aleesha.... He’s just having a mental breakdown and he won’t even believe where he’s from. He won’t even believe that I gave birth to him…. I don’t know what to do.”

Six weeks later, Simon was found dead, along with her 7-year-old grandson, Brayden Otto. Her son, Heath Otto, 24, admitted to investigators in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that he had strangled his mother and nephew with a phone cord and then slit their throats.

Soon after, Otto was ruled incompetent to stand trial, and he was sent to a state hospital. Doctors hired by his defense lawyers diagnosed him with schizophrenia. The Minnehaha County state’s attorney, Aaron McGowan, told DeKnikker that her brother could face the death penalty. A trial will take place as soon as Otto’s mental condition stabilizes, unless the prosecutor agrees to let him be committed to a hospital permanently rather than face prison and potential execution.

The case is gearing up amid a broader decline in the death penalty, as lawmakers around the country are considering bans on death sentences for people with certain serious mental illnesses. Some prosecutors have pushed back, seeing these bans as a backdoor effort to abolish the punishment entirely.

Read the full article about the death penalty for the mentally ill by Maurice Chammah at The Marshall Project.