Severe mental illness is typically associated with delusions, which are fixed, clearly false beliefs; hallucinations, which are unmistakably erroneous perceptions of reality; extremely disorganized thinking; or very significant disruption of consciousness, memory, and perception of the environment.

Under the proposed law, the defense team would have to show that there is a causal connection between their client's illness and the crime, and that their client's reality was so distorted that he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or understand the consequences of his actions.

Eighteen states currently have a definition of insanity that is similar to the statute being proposed in North Carolina exempting the seriously mentally ill from the death penalty. The difference between North Carolina's proposed statute and the law in the other 18 states is in sentencing - under our proposed statute, guilty offenders would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. In the other states, offenders are acquitted and sent to mental institutions.