Death-penalty options

Thank you for the editorial "California and the Death Penalty," April 20. While I am in personal agreement with all of your arguments against the death penalty, I wish to comment specifically, in behalf of our organization, on the argument you raise concerning "insanity defenses" and executions.

Obviously we agree with the high court that persons who are insane at the time of the commission of a crime should not be put to death. But, along with the Monitor, we take issue with the court's ensuing provision for allowing those same persons to be executed if and when they are "restored to mental health."

We hold this ruling to be not only inconsistent but grotesque. It is akin to punishing a person as an adult for an act of unacceptable behavior committed while that person was still a child. Madeleine M. Goodrich, Concord, Mass. National Alliance for the Mentally Ill

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