Despite PTSD, Veterans End Up On Death Row

The case of Courtney Lockhart shows what some people like Dieter say is the criminal justice system’s unfair treatment of veterans with PTSD.

Lockhart spent 16 months in Ramadi, Iraq, where he witnessed many fellow soldiers get killed. In his brigade, 64 soldiers died. Lockhart returned home with PTSD.

In 2008, he carjacked and murdered an Auburn University freshman. A jury convicted him in 2010 and unanimously recommended life without parole. But the judge overrode the jury’s decision and sentenced Lockhart to be executed.  (Alabama, Delaware and Florida are the only states that permit judges to override a jury’s recommended sentence, according to NPR.)

Circuit Court Judge Jacob Walker declined to answer questions about Lockhart’s sentence.

“With all we know in this day and age about combat trauma, that we would still be putting veterans to death is unbelievable,” said Brock Hunter, a Minnesota lawyer who works with the Veterans Defense Project. “Their service should be taken into account.”

Some of the vets on death row were sentenced  decades ago, at a time when PTSD was not well understood or discussed. The Supreme Court offered some hope to them in 2009, when it reviewed the conviction of George Porter, a decorated Korean War veteran with PTSD.

Porter had been on death row for the 1986 drunken shootings of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend in Florida. The Supreme Court justices unanimously threw out his sentence, faulting his defense for not investigating Porter’s military record and finding evidence of battle-induced psychological trauma.

The intellectually disabled and insane are ineligible for the death penalty, but PTSD is a mental illness. The Porter ruling signaled that jurors ought to hear that a defendant has PTSD before deciding a sentence.

Even with greater awareness about traumatic military experiences, it appears some authorities are impervious to appeals for mercy for vets. Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, governors have granted clemency to inmates 280 times. Not one ever mentioned a vet’s service or injuries as a factor in sparing an inmate, Dieter found.

Younger veterans appear to be more open to admitting that combat left them psychologically wounded, even if they’re physically fine, according to Ross McGlathery, director of VetsFirst, an organization that directs troops to medical care and other services. The military leadership also encourages vets to seek mental health care. But McGlathery, a Marine, was concerned about about linking military service to criminal behavior years later.

“There are people who have PTSD and they need a lot of help,” he said, “but the military isn’t a gateway to crime.”