INTERSECTIONS IN CAPITAL DEFENCE: MENTAL HEALTH AND THE DEATH PENALTY

  • Project 39A is a research and legal aid centre at the National Law University Delhi. It provides pro bono legal representation to death row prisoners across India, in addition to conducting empirical and doctrinal research on the death penalty, prevention of torture, legal aid, sentencing, and mental health and criminal justice. Currently, Project 39A is representing 60% of all death penalty cases in the Supreme Court. Since its inception in 2014, Project 39A  has secured 22 acquittals in the Supreme Court and High Courts and 44 commutations, i.e. conversion of the death sentence to life imprisonment. Project 39A provided legal representation to the accused, in Accused X vs. State of Maharashtra (2019) where the Supreme Court recognised post-conviction mental illness as a mitigating circumstance in sentencing. It also provided legal representation to all three accused in the landmark case of Manoj & Ors. vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) where the Supreme Court laid down death penalty sentencing guidelines.


About the programme:

India is seeing a growing need to address the complex realities and underpinnings of mental health of accused persons as well as its interaction with the justice system. But there continues to be a serious lack of resources for mental health professionals to meaningfully and effectively extend their expertise to defence lawyers, and by extension to  judges in the courtroom. Project 39A’s upcoming year-long program, Intersections in Capital Defence (ICD),  is designed to equip mental health professionals to engage with criminal cases, especially those relating to the death penalty, and be part of a robust network that can help realise the Constitution’s vision of equal access to quality legal representation and equal justice for all. The program aims to build capacity for robust relationships between mental health professionals and defence teams.

Eligibility:

The ICD program is open to Mental Health Professionals with advanced degrees in Psychology, Psychiatry, Psychiatric Social Work. Early-career professionals are encouraged to apply!

What’s in store for you?

  • Four-day residential program at the National Law University Delhi from 8-11 December, 2024

  • Regular, quarterly online sessions over the course of the next 12 months

  • Engagement with at least one death penalty case 

What will you learn?

  • Critical perspectives on mental health and disability, and their interaction with criminal law 

  • Foundational and interdisciplinary approaches to issues of crime and punishment

  • Perspectives on and lived experiences of the death penalty

  • The role of mental health professionals in capital defence

  • Working with criminal defence teams to ensure that  mental health concerns of the accused are taken into account by courts

  • Writing an expert opinion for the defence 

Who will be teaching you?

An interdisciplinary faculty of renowned Indian and international experts on law, psychology, psychiatry, and allied disciplines will deliver a diverse range of sessions to learners throughout the year.

The faculty for the residential workshop includes:

Sandra Babcock
founder & faculty director
Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide

Professor Sandra Babcock is Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, and Faculty Director and founder of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, where she and her colleagues launched a movement to end the extreme sentencing of women and gender non-conforming individuals. She is a leading expert on mental health and the death penalty in the USA. Sandra has been responsible for the release of over 250 prisoners through a decade-long project on access to justice in Malawi where she also developed the Makwanyane Institute, an intensive training seminar on capital sentencing and mental health for capital defence lawyers from African countries.

Swagata Raha
Director (Research)
Co-Director (Restorative Practices)
Enfold India

Swagata Raha is a key member of Enfold India where she is the Director of Research, and the Co-Director of Restorative Practices. The organisation aims to generate evidence on the implementation and impact of child protection laws. Along with her team, Swagata also facilitates restorative processes with children and adults, and teaches and designs capacity building programmes for a range of stakeholders. As an expert at the forefront of research on child sexual violence, Swagata has been an active part of developing State Juvenile Justice Rules and the Guidelines for Recording Evidence of Vulnerable Witnesses. Swagata is currently concluding a study on child survivors of sexual violence and the death penalty.

 

Soumitra Pathare
consultant psychiatrist
Director
Center for Mental Health Law and Policy

Dr. Soumitra Pathare is a consultant psychiatrist and Director, Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, Indian Law Society’s Law College, Pune. He provided critical assistance to the Government of India in drafting the country’s new Mental Health Care Act 2017. He was also a member of the National Mental Health Policy Group to draft India’s first National Mental Health Policy released in 2014. He has served as a WHO consultant in many low and middle-income countries assisting them in drafting and implementing mental health legislation policies. Soumitra has also co-authored multiple Position Statements of the World Psychiatric Association including on Mental Health and the Death Penalty.

 

Maitreyi Misra
Director (Death Penalty Mitigation)
Director (Mental Health & Criminal Justice)
Project 39A, National Law University Delhi

Maitreyi Misra is the Director of Project 39A’s Mental Health & Criminal Justice work, and also the Death Penalty Mitigation team. She is the lead author of Project 39A’s report, Deathworthy: A Mental Health Perspective of the Death Penalty (2021). She led the drafting of the World Psychiatric Association’s Position Statement on Mental Health and the Death Penalty. She has been involved in providing legal representation to death row prisoners for around a decade. Maitreyi and her team’s work led to the laying down of sentencing guidelines in the landmark case of Manoj & Ors. vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022).

C P Shruthi
Senior Associate (Death Penalty Mitigation)
Project 39A, National Law University Delhi

Ms. C P Shruthi is a Senior Associate with the Death Penalty Mitigation vertical at Project 39A. Shruthi has extensive experience in conducting mitigation investigations and has submitted Mitigation Investigation Reports before the Supreme Court and various High Courts in 18 cases. She also presented mitigation evidence for two of the accused persons in Manoj & Ors. vs. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022). Shruthi’s mitigation investigations have taken her to various parts of the country, including various prisons, making her intimately familiar with the inner lives of India’s death row prisoners and their experience of incarceration.

Marc J Tassé
Director
Nisonger Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities

Professor Marc J. Tassé, PhD teaches in the psychology, psychiatry, and behavioural health departments at Ohio State University (OSU) and is also the Director of OSU’s Nisonger Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. He has more than thirty years of experience in conducting research and providing mental health services to persons with intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and related neurodevelopmental disorders. Marc is a past President of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2012-2013). He is actively involved in providing mental health expert evaluations and testimonies in capital sentencing cases.

Nimisha Srivastava
Executive Director
Counsel to Secure Justice

Nimisha Srivastava is the Executive Director of Counsel to Secure Justice, and works primarily on access to justice for child sexual abuse survivors and building restorative justice models for children and communities. Nimisha is a survivor of multiple kinds of gender based violence and believes in bringing a compassionate and humane eye to the idea of justice, centering the rights of children on both sides of the justice system. She has previously worked with the Ministry of Women and Child Development as a Senior Officer spearheading media advocacy under the National Mission for the Empowerment of Women.

 

Neetika Vishwanath
Director (Sentencing)
Project 39A, National Law University Delhi

Neetika Vishwanath is the Director of Project 39A’s Sentencing vertical. Neetika led Project 39A's foundational study on capital sentencing which revealed fundamental gaps in the Indian capital sentencing framework along with demonstrating a poor state of compliance in trial courts. She also co-led an opinion study with former Supreme Court Judges on the death penalty and the Indian criminal justice system. In addition to her expertise on sentencing, Neetika has conducted ethnographic research on rape trials in India. She has written extensively on these issues in peer-reviewed academic journals and print media.

 

Anup Surendranath
Professor of Law, NLU Delhi
Executive Director, Project 39A

Professor Anup Surendranath is Professor of Law at the National Law University Delhi and the SK Malik Chair Professor on Access to Justice. He is also the Executive Director of Project 39A, and led India’s first ever study, Death Penalty India Report on the administration of the death penalty in India. The report has been widely cited in India’s parliamentary debates, governmental committees including the Law Commission of India, and in reports of the United Nations and the UN Secretary General. Professor Surendranath also serves on the Advisory Council of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.