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RALEIGH – State lawmakers met Thursday afternoon to talk about whether or not North Carolina should seek the death penalty for defendants with severe mental illnesses.

A joint committee of state senators and representative is drafting a bill that would allow judges to eliminate the death penalty as a possible punishment for defendants who prove before trial they were suffering from a severe mental illness at the time of the crime.

“Do we really want to be the kind of society that executes an individual because they have a medical, mental health issue?” asked John Tote, executive director of the Mental Health Association of North Carolina. “We wouldn't say that if they had heart disease or diabetes.”

Dozens of mental health advocates filled the audience as state lawmakers listened to Kim Stevens, an attorney based in Winston-Salem, explain why she supports the proposed bill.

If passed, it would allow defendants to request a pre-trial hearing to determine if they were suffering from a severe mental illness at the time the crime was committed. If so, the judge can eliminate the death penalty as possible punishment, if the defendant is eventually convicted.

Federal and state laws already prohibit the execution of defendants with mental retardation. However, mental health advocates argue defendants with severe mental illnesses can be just as vulnerable, though not mentally retarded.

“We are looking at those individuals with significant impairment through, perhaps schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,” explained Tote. “People that simply do not rise to the level of understanding the total effect of the act they have perpetrated and cannot reasonably understand right from wrong.”

Stevens told lawmakers about a capital murder case where she represented a defendant who suffered from severe mental illness. She said before the trial began, defense attorneys and prosecutors both recognized and acknowledged his compromised mental state.

They agreed to explain the situation to the judge and allow the defendant to plead guilty to first degree murder without subjecting him to the death penalty, leaving him to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“The benefit to the taxpayers has been that the capital trial was avoided and capital trials are expensive,” Stevens told the committee.

Mental health advocates predict the proposed law would likely apply to less than five people a year in North Carolina.

Retroactively, they estimate it would only apply to five of the 150 inmates currently on death row.

Lawmakers hope to introduce the bill during this year's legislative session, which begins January 28.