|
- June 6, 2001
Executing
the Retarded
Although
this week's 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision overturning the death
sentence of a retarded Texan named Johnny Paul Penry was decided
on narrow legal grounds, it was nonetheless a significant victory
for common sense and decency. The ruling is bound to add momentum
to the growing national movement to end the nation's uncivilized
practice of executing mentally retarded people convicted of
capital crimes. Currently, the United States is one of only three
countries - Kyrgyzstan and Japan are the others - that impose the
death penalty on killers whose low I.Q.'s put them in the retarded
category. Regrettably, the Supreme Court has not used Mr. Penry's
long legal battle to end the practice in this country. When the
court first dealt with his case in 1989, it concluded that
executing retarded people convicted of capital offenses did not
violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual"
punishment. Nevertheless, it overturned his original death
sentence because of flawed jury instructions. This week the court
concluded that even the revised jury instructions in his case were
flawed and again overturned his death sentence. But the court put
off the broader constitutional question until next term, when it
will revisit the issue in a different case. There is good reason
to hope that the court will find the Eighth Amendment argument
more persuasive this time. In 1989 it found no "national
consensus" against executing retarded people, but such a
consensus is clearly emerging. While only two death-penalty states
had laws rejecting the penalty for retarded killers then, 14
states have such statutes now. That number could soon grow, as the
legislatures in both Florida and Texas have passed bills barring
such executions. The bills are awaiting approval or veto by the
two states' governors, Jeb Bush and Rick Perry respectively.
Mirroring the pattern in the rest of the country, most Texans
support capital punishment but draw the line at executing the
retarded. Last August Mr. Perry, then lieutenant governor,
presided over the execution of Oliver Cruz, a confessed rapist and
murderer said to have been incapable of learning beyond a
sixth-grade level, while Gov. George W. Bush was out of state
campaigning for president. By signing the bill, Mr. Perry cannot
escape his share of responsibility for that deplorable action. But
he can at least help move his state and the rest of the nation to
higher moral ground.
Usa,
salvato dalla Corte suprema il minorato condannato a morte
Sentenza
storica che segna un passo avanti per
la
campagna contro la pena capitale
ARTURO
ZAMPAGLIONE
NEWYORK
- Per il momento Johnny Paul Penry potr� continuare, a disegnare
case ed alberi con le matite colorate nella cella del carcere di
Huntsville. La Corte suprema, infatti, ha annullato il suo secondo
appuntamento con il boia del Texas, sostenendo che ai giurati che
lo avevano condannato a morte non erano state date istruzioni
precise su come comportarsi nel caso di un ritardato mentale. E
Penry rientra proprio in questa categoria: a dispetto della mole e
di qualche capello bianco, ha l'intelligenza (e i gusti) di un
bambino di 7 anni.
Approvata
con 6 voti a favore e 3 contrari, quelli dei superconservatori
William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia e Clarence Thomas, la sentenza
di ieri della Corte suprema conferma che il pendolo della
giustizia capitale sta tornando negli Usa su posizioni meno
esasperate. I sondaggi mostrano che la pena di morte � meno
popolare del passato. Persino il Texas ha dei ripensamenti
sull'uso indiscriminato della forca. E alla vigilia delle prime
esecuzioni federali - quella di Timothy McVeigh � fissata per
l'11 giugno (anche se potrebbe essere ritardata), quella di Juan
Garza per il 19 - si moltiplicano gli appelli per una moratoria
generalizzata.
Nessuno
contesta la colpevolezza di Penry, che nel �79 stupr� e uccise
una ragazza di 22 anni, Pamela Moseley Carpenter. Le polemiche
nascono invece per la condanna a morte: i suoi avvocati,
appoggiati dagli avversari della pena capitale, sostengono che non
� accettabile consegnare al boia un ritardato mentale, il quale
non si rende neanche conto di che cosa ha fatto e a che cosa va
incontro. Ma anche se l'esecuzione di un minorato fa ribrezzo in
tutto il mondo industrializzato, in America � ancora del tutto
costituzionale. L'unica "regola" � che lo stato mentale
pu� essere fattore mitigante.
I
9 giudici della Corte suprema hanno deciso a marzo di riesaminare
l'intera questione, sollevata anche da un caso molto simile a
quello di Penry nella Carolina del Nord. Ma fino a quando non ci
sar� una sentenza, sono le legislazioni statali a stabilire la
liceit� della condanna a morte dei minorati. E quella del Texas
ancora la prevede, anche se una legge per l'abolizione � sul
tavolo di Rick Perry, governatore dello stato e successore di
George W. Bush.
Nell'89
i legali di Penry convinsero la Corte suprema ad annullare una
prima condanna a morte, spiegando che ai giurati che avevano
stabilito la pena non erano state dati istruzioni precise. Il caso
Penry torn� dunque di fronte a una giuria, che impose per la
seconda volta la pena di morte. Ma anche la seconda sentenza �
stata ora annullata dai giudici di Washington. �Non era chiaro
che l'alternativa alla pena di morte sarebbe stata l'ergastolo�,
ha scritto a nome della maggioranza Sandra O'Connor.
Dopo
la decisione di ieri, l'impressione prevalente � che Penry
riuscir� a evitare la morte. In attesa che il suo caso venga
riesaminato dall'ennesima giuria, � probabile che la legge texana
contro le condanne ai minorati diventi definitiva o che la Corte
suprema metta definitivamente al bando questo tipo di esecuzioni.
E lui, Penry, senza neanche sapere d'essere un simbolo della lotta
contro la barbarie, continuer� a usare la matita gialla per
disegnare il sole e la nera per il fumo dei caminetti.
TG
COM
4-6-2001
Usa:
annullata la pena di morte per un minorato mentale I periti:
"Ha il cervello di un bambino di sette anni"
La
condanna a morte per il disabile Johnny Penry � stata annullata
dalla Corte Suprema americana. Il motivo sarebbe che il condannato
ha un livello di sviluppo mentale pari a quello di un bambino di
sette anni e un quoziente intellettivo compreso fra i 50 e i 63
punti, contro un minimo di 70 raggiunto di norma da una persona
adulta.
Penry
fu arrestato nel 1979 a Livingstone, Texas, con l'accusa di aver
violentato ed ucciso una ragazza di 22 anni, Pamela Moseley
Carpenter, sorella del giocatore di football dei Washington
Redskins, Mark Moseley. Pamela venne ferita mortalmente al petto a
colpi di forbice da Penry.
Ma
prima di morire riusc� a fare il nome del suo assassino. Lo
stesso Penry, che aveva precedenti per stupro, confess� e il
processo port� alla sua condanna a morte. Nel 1989 la Corte
suprema ordin� la revisione del primo processo al fine di
consentire ai giurati di valutare la condizione mentale di Penry,
pur sottolineando che restava costituzionale condannare a morte un
minorato mentale. Nel 1990 il secondo processo conferm� della
condanna alla pena capitale. Infine, il 16 novembre dell'anno
scorso, la Corte aveva nuovamente bloccato il boia a pochi minuti
dall'esecuzione per poter riesaminare il caso. Di Penry si era
interessata anche la COMUNIT� DI SANT'EGIDIO.
Dal
quando nel 1976 � stata reintrodotta la pena capitale negli Usa,
sono stati messi a morte 35 ritardati mentali, e sono attualmente
2-300 i condannati con disturbi mentali rinchiusi nel braccio
della morte.
Usa:
nuova udienza per Penry, il ritardato condannato a morte
4
giugno 2001
Clamorosa
sentenza della Corte suprema americana
WASHINGTON
(CNN) -- La Corte suprema degli Stati Uniti ha ordinato una nuova
udienza in favore di un handicappato mentale del Texas condannato
a morte.
Si
tratta di un caso che viene seguito con grande attenzione dai
gruppi che si oppongono alla pena capitale. Riguarda Johnny Paul
Penry, condannato nel 1979 per lo stupro e l'omicidio della
ventiduenne Pamela Moseley Carpenter. I suoi avvocati affermano
che soffre di un leggero ritardo mentale e che ha il cervello
equivalente a quello di un bambino di sette anni.
Con
sei voti a favore e tre contrari, la Corte suprema ha ordinato che
sia nuovamente discussa davanti a una giuria la pena comminata,
non la sentenza di colpevolezza. All'unanimit� i giudici hanno
invece stabilito la legittimit� dell'acquisizione come prova da
parte del tribunale di un referto psichiatrico di Penry.
Il
Parlamento del Texas ha da poco votato una legge che proibisce
l'esecuzione di persone mentalmente ritardate. Il governatore Rick
Perry, successore dell'attuale presidente George Bush, non ha
ancora detto se firmer� la legge.
Gi�
nello scorso autunno la Corte suprema aveva sollevato molto
clamore accettando di valutare l'ultimo ricorso presentato da
Penry. Gli oppositori della pena di morte sostengono infatti che
le giurie che devono decidere la pena spesso ricevono, in casi
come questi, istruzioni inadeguate da parte del giudice che
presiede l'udienza.
Penry,
d'altra parte, era gi� diventato un caso celebre dal momento in
cui confess� il delitto. Dopo una primo complicato passaggio
attraverso il sistema penale del Texas, la Corte suprema accett�
di discutere il suo primo ricorso e, nel 1989, sfrutto il caso
Penry per fissare due elementi importanti della giurisprudenza in
caso di pena capitale.
Come
prima cosa la corte stabil� che l'esecuzione di persone
mentalmente ritardate � costituzionale, ma afferm� anche che le
giure nel prendere in considerazione la pena di morte devono
sapere come valutare il ritardo mentale come attenuante.
La
causa di Penry torn� a quel punto davanti ai tribunali del Texas,
ma i suoi avvocati sostennero che anche la giuria che lo aveva
mandato per la seconda volta a morte non aveva ricevuto istruzioni
migliori della prima.
E
questo � il punto sollevato nel secondo ricorso che la Corte
suprema ha accettato di discutere nell'autunno scorso. Ma il caso
� presto diventato secondario. Il giorno prima dell'inizio del
dibattimento sulla causa Penry davanti ai giudici supremi, la
Corte sbalord� gli osservatori accettando di esaminare un altro
caso - questa volta proveniente dalla Carolina del Nord - che pone
la stessa domanda che era stata posta da Penry 12 anni orsono:
l'esecuzione di un ritardato mentale viola l'ottavo emendamento
della Costituzione che proibisce pene crudeli o inusuali?
Se
la Corte suprema cambier� la sua sentenza e stabilir� che i
ritardati mentali non possono essere messi a morte, diventer�
irrilevante la questione delle istruzioni da dare alla giuria che
deve valutare se condannare a una pena detentiva o alla pena
capitale un reo.
WASHINGTON --
In
a case closely watched by opponents of capital punishment, the
Supreme Court ruled Monday that a jury should have considered a
Texas inmate's mental capacity before sentencing him to death.
The 6-3 ruling called for a new sentencing
hearing for Johnny Paul Penry, who was sentenced to death for the
1979 rape and murder of 22-year-old Pamela Moseley Carpenter. His
lawyers have described Penry as mildly mentally retarded with the
mind of a 7-year-old.
Another part of the court's ruling was
unanimous. The justice ruled that a Texas court had properly
admitted into evidence parts of a psychiatric report on Penry.
The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill
banning the execution of mentally retarded persons. Gov. Rick
Perry hasn't said whether he will sign it.
The Supreme Court made headlines last fall
when it accepted Penry's latest appeal, in part because death
penalty opponents say juries too often get inadequate instructions
and in part because of Penry's own notoriety.
Penry has been in the forefront of the debate
over capital punishment almost from the moment he confessed to
killing Carpenter.
After a complicated and highly publicized
passage through the Texas courts, the Supreme Court accepted his
first appeal and in 1989 used his case to establish two related
tenets of capital punishment practice.
The court ruled then that execution of the
mentally retarded is constitutional, but juries considering the
death penalty must understand how to weigh retardation as a
mitigating factor.
Penry's case returned to the Texas courts,
where his lawyers claim the second jury that sentenced him to
death got no better instructions than the first.
That is the question the Supreme Court agreed
to review in his case, but it soon became a sidelight.
One day before the justices heard arguments
in Penry's case in March, they raised the stakes much higher by
agreeing to hear a separate North Carolina case that asks the same
question Penry did 12 years ago: Does executing the mentally
retarded violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and
unusual punishment?
If
the court reverses itself with that case and declares that the
retarded must be spared, the issue of proper death penalty jury
instructions would be irrelevant.
Monday June 4
-
Texas
Death Sentence Overturned
By
LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
(AP) - In a prelude to deciding whether the mentally retarded can
be executed, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a
Texas killer on Monday because the jury lacked clear instructions
on how to weigh his mental condition.
The
ruling voided the death sentence of Johnny Paul Penry, who was
originally convicted of murder in 1979 and has been sentenced to
die twice. He killed Pamela Moseley Carpenter, sister of former
pro football place-kicker Mark Moseley.
The
6-3 ruling pitted the court's moderates and liberals against its
conservatives, but did not resolve whether execution of the
mentally retarded violates the Constitution's prohibition against
cruel and unusual punishment. The court has agreed to hear
arguments on that larger question this fall in the appeal of a
North Carolina death row inmate.
``If
you had to predict where the court is, we would hope they're
becoming as troubled as a lot of Americans are about how the death
penalty is being used in this country,'' said attorney Richard
Kammen of Indianapolis. Kammen is vice president of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Mark
Levin, president of the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation,
said the ruling gives no real clues into the court's thinking.
``I
don't think this decision gives us any insight into court's future
position on the death penalty because it's focused on instructions
given the jury,'' he said.
The
case of Penry, whose lawyers say has the mind of a 7-year-old and
plays with coloring books, reversed a federal appeals court that
upheld the jury instructions.
The
Texas Legislature recently passed a bill banning the execution of
mentally retarded persons but Gov. Rick Perry hasn't said whether
he'll sign it.
Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor , writing for the majority, said the Texas
trial court ignored the jury instruction guidelines set by the
Supreme Court when it previously overturned Penry's death sentence.
After that ruling, Penry was sentenced a second time.
The
crucial mistake, O'Connor wrote, was that jurors were asked to
vote ``no'' to specific questions about Penry's conduct if they
wanted to spare him from death. They were to answer this way even
if their truthful response to any of the questions would have been
``yes.''
``The
jury was essentially instructed to return a false answer ... in
order to avoid a death sentence,'' O'Connor wrote.
Justice
Clarence Thomas dissented,
joined by two fellow conservatives: Chief Justice William
Rehnquist and Justice
Antonin Scalia .
``Without
performing legal acrobatics, I cannot make the instruction
confusing,'' Thomas wrote.
In
the 24 years since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume,
there have been 716 including 246 in Texas.
The
Death Penalty Information Center, which maintains statistics on
executions, said 35 of the 716 people put to death showed evidence
of mental retardation according to psychological testing.
Fourteen
states have enacted legislation to ban execution of the mentally
retarded: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas,
Kentucky, Maryland, New Mexico, Nebraska, New York, South Dakota,
Tennessee and Washington state.
In
addition to Texas, the Florida and Missouri legislatures have
passed a prohibition but their governors have not signed the bills.
Penry
became eligible for parole when the Supreme Court threw out his
death sentence, but his attorney said he doubted Penry would leave
prison.
``You
don't really think with the publicity of this case that this man
would ever make parole,'' said Penry lawyer, John Wright.
Another
Penry lawyer, Robert Smith, said, ``The right thing to do here is
to work out something that makes it reasonably sure that Penry
really does do life in prison and is never let out, which I think
is probably their main concern.''
Joe
Price, the district attorney who won death sentences twice in
Penry's case and has seen both overturned, commented: ``There's no
question in my mind if we turn this rascal loose, somebody else is
going to pay the price out there somewhere.''
The
case is Penry v. Johnson, 00-6677.
Supreme
Court Overturns Retarded Man's Death Sentence
By
James Vicini
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned the death
sentence of a Texas inmate said by his lawyers to be so mentally
retarded he still believes in Santa Claus, ruling the jury
instructions at resentencing were flawed.
By
a 6-3 vote, the court ruled for Johnny Paul Penry, 45, a convicted
killer whose IQ is said by his lawyers to be between 50 and 63,
below the 70 required for normal intelligence. They say he has the
reasoning capacity of a 7-year-old.
The
majority opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor the jury
instruction was ``ineffective and illogical'' and did not allow
jurors to consider mitigating evidence of Penry's mental
retardation and childhood abuse.
The
Supreme Court in 1989 threw out Penry's conviction and ordered a
new trial on the grounds that juries in capital murder trials must
be allowed to weigh evidence of mental retardation.
Penry
then was retried, convicted and again sentenced to death in 1990
in the 1979 rape and murder of Pamela Carpenter, 22, in the east
Texas town of Livingston.
O'Connor
said the jury instructions at resentencing failed to comply with
the Supreme Court's 1989 ruling.
She
said the new instructions failed to provide the jury ''with a
vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to the
mitigating evidence of Penry's mental retardation and childhood
abuse.'' COURT TO DECIDE BROADER ISSUE
In
its term that begins in October, the high court will consider the
broader question of whether the execution of mentally retarded
people convicted of capital crimes should be barred as
unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
In
its 1989 ruling in the Penry case, the Supreme Court found that
executing the mentally retarded did not violate the cruel and
unusual punishment ban.
The
American Civil Liberties Union said the ruling only reinforced the
need for a total ban on the execution of the mentally retarded.
``The
court's ruling highlights the difficulty that the criminal justice
system has experienced in fairly assessing the guilt and moral
responsibility of mentally retarded defendants in capital cases,''
said Diann Rust-Tierney of the ACLU.
In
Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has until June 17 to decide whether to sign
into law a bill passed by the state legislature that would ban the
execution of convicted killers who are mentally retarded.
A
spokesman for Perry said the governor's office was reviewing the
ruling.
The
verdict form given to the second jury contained the same three
main questions as the one in the first trial: Was the murder
deliberate? Does Penry represent a continuing threat to society?
And was the murder unprovoked?
The
only difference was an instruction by the judge that if the jurors,
in considering the mitigating factors, decide that a sentence of
life in prison should be imposed, they should answer ``no'' to any
of the three questions.
Prosecutors
have argued that Penry, who confessed to the crime, has been
pretending to be retarded.
He
was convicted of killing Carpenter, the sister of former
Washington Redskins kicker Mark Moseley, with her own pair of
scissors after forcing his way into her home and raping her. He
was out on probation for a 1977 rape at the time.
In
another section of the decision, the court unanimously held that
admission into evidence of statements from a psychiatric report
based on an interview with Penry did not violate his
constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Chief
Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence
Thomas - the court's three most conservative members -- dissented
from the ruling.
Thomas
wrote that the most recent sentencing gave jurors an opportunity
to consider the evidence Penry presented. ``In today's decision,
this court yet again has second-guessed itself and decided that
even this supplemental instruction is not constitutionally
sufficient,'' he said.
June
4
By
James Vicini
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court
on Monday overturned the death sentence of a Texas inmate
said by his lawyers to be so mentally retarded he still believes
in Santa Claus, ruling the jury instructions at resentencing were
flawed.
By
a 6-3 vote, the court ruled for Johnny Paul Penry, 45, a convicted
killer whose IQ is said by his lawyers to be between 50 and 63,
below the 70 required for normal intelligence. They say he has the
reasoning capacity of a 7-year-old.
The
majority opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the jury instruction was ``ineffective and illogical''
and did not allow jurors to consider mitigating evidence of Penry's
mental retardation and childhood abuse.
The
Supreme Court in 1989 threw out Penry's conviction and ordered a
new trial on the grounds that juries in capital murder trials must
be allowed to weigh evidence of mental retardation.
Penry
then was retried, convicted and again sentenced to death in 1990
in the 1979 rape and murder of Pamela Carpenter, 22, in the east
Texas town of Livingston.
O'Connor
said the jury instructions at resentencing failed to comply with
the Supreme Court's 1989 ruling.
She
said the new instructions failed to provide the jury ''with a
vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to the
mitigating evidence of Penry's mental retardation and childhood
abuse.''
COURT
TO DECIDE BROADER ISSUE
In
its term that begins in October, the high court will consider the
broader question of whether the execution of mentally retarded
people convicted of capital crimes should be barred as
unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
In
its 1989 ruling in the Penry case, the Supreme Court found that
executing the mentally retarded did not violate the cruel and
unusual punishment ban.
The
American Civil Liberties Union
said the ruling only reinforced the need for a total ban on
the execution of the mentally retarded.
``The
court's ruling highlights the difficulty that the criminal justice
system has experienced in fairly assessing the guilt and moral
responsibility of mentally retarded defendants in capital cases,''
said Diann Rust-Tierney of the ACLU.
In
Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has until June 17 to decide whether to sign
into law a bill passed by the state legislature that would ban the
execution of convicted killers who are mentally retarded.
A
spokesman for Perry said the governor's office was reviewing the
ruling.
The
verdict form given to the second jury contained the same three
main questions as the one in the first trial: Was the murder
deliberate? Does Penry represent a continuing threat to society?
And was the murder unprovoked?
The
only difference was an instruction by the judge that if the jurors,
in considering the mitigating factors, decide that a sentence of
life in prison should be imposed, they should answer ``no'' to any
of the three questions.
Prosecutors
have argued that Penry, who confessed to the crime, has been
pretending to be retarded.
He
was convicted of killing Carpenter, the sister of former
Washington Redskins kicker Mark Moseley, with her own pair of
scissors after forcing his way into her home and raping her. He
was out on probation for a 1977 rape at the time.
In
another section of the decision, the court unanimously held that
admission into evidence of statements from a psychiatric report
based on an interview with Penry did not violate his
constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Chief
Justice William Rehnquist and
Justices Antonin Scalia and
Clarence Thomas --
the court's three most conservative members -- dissented from the
ruling.
Thomas wrote that the most recent sentencing gave
jurors an opportunity to consider the evidence Penry presented.
``In today's decision, this court yet again has second-guessed
itself and decided that even this supplemental instruction is not
constitutionally sufficient,'' he said.
Monday,
4 June, 2001 BBC
US
court overturns death sentence
Johnny
Paul Penry: Case has been at forefront of US debate
The
US Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence against a man
said by lawyers to have the mental age of a seven-year-old.
Judges
ruled that a Texas court should have taken into account Johnny
Paul Penry's mental capacity before sentencing him to death.
Death
penalty USA
38
states have the death penalty
More
then 3,600 inmates are on death row
Execution
can be by hanging, electrocution, gassing, the firing squad or
lethal injection
Four
states still use the electric chair
Penry,
44, was convicted of murdering Pamela Moseley Carpenter in Texas
in 1979.
Penry's
case, which has now been sent back to a federal appeals court, has
been one of those at the forefront of the debate in the US over
whether execution of the mentally retarded is constitutional.
After
a complicated and highly-publicised passage through the Texas
courts, the Supreme Court accepted Penry's first appeal and in
1989 used his case to establish two related tenets of capital
punishment practice.
The
court ruled then that execution of the mentally retarded was
constitutional, but juries considering the death penalty should
understand how to weigh retardation as a mitigating factor.
Withheld
evidence
A
recent study of the death penalty in the US found that two-thirds
of all capital convictions are overturned on appeal.
Of
the cases where courts ordered a new trial, 7% were acquitted,
while 75% were convicted but sentenced to a lesser punishment.
The
study found the most common reasons for reversals were errors
committed by incompetent defence lawyers, faulty instructions to
juries or evidence withheld by law enforcement officers.
There are no definitive cases of innocent people having
been executed, but 87 people have been released from death row
since 1973.
� 05/06/01
Death
Sentence For Retarded Man Is Overturned
High
Court Says Jury in Penry Case Was Given Inadequate Instructions
By
Charles Lane
Washington
Post Staff Writer
Tuesday,
June 5, 2001; Page A03
Ruling
in the case of a mentally retarded Texas man whose lawyers have
been fighting his execution for two decades, the Supreme Court
yesterday overturned the death sentence imposed on convicted
murderer Johnny Paul Penry.
By
a vote of 6-3, the court held that instructions given by the judge
in Penry's 1990 trial failed to give the jury an adequate
opportunity to consider circumstances such as his alleged mental
disabilities, violating the constitutional ban on cruel and
unusual punishment.
The
judge's instructions "provided an inadequate vehicle for the
jury to make a reasoned moral response to Penry's mitigating
evidence," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the opinion
for the court. It was the second time the court has ruled on
Penry's case and the second time it overturned his death sentence.
The
court's decision probably immediately affects only Penry and a
handful of other Texas death row inmates. It does not bear
directly on the larger question of whether executing the mentally
retarded is unconstitutional in all cases. That issue will be
addressed in a separate case the justices have agreed to hear next
fall.
However,
the case of Penry, who was subjected to horrific child abuse and
whose measured intelligence is said to be similar to that of a
seven-year-old, has become a rallying point for capital punishment
opponents around the world.
Yesterday's
decision gives them a symbolic victory at a time when many states
are reconsidering their death penalty procedures. The Texas
Legislature recently approved a bill that would ban executions of
the mentally retarded.
"It
is surely encouraging in that sense," said James Ellis, a law
professor at the University of New Mexico who is helping the legal
team that will argue for abolishing the death penalty for the
mentally retarded next term. "It further confirms . . . that
the court is aware of what's happening, and of the movement in the
country."
Ellis
noted that the court's opinion referred to the fact that Texas Gov.
Rick Perry is considering the Texas ban, which will become law if
he fails to veto or sign it by June 17.
Local
authorities in Texas expressed disappointment with the ruling.
"Our opinion all along is that Johnny Paul Penry deserves the
death penalty, and that that would have been justice in this
case," said William Lee Hohn, first assistant district
attorney of Polk County, where Penry was tried.
Penry
raped and murdered Pamela Moseley Carpenter, the sister of former
Washington Redskins place kicker Mark Moseley, on Oct. 25, 1979.
He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980.
But
the Supreme Court threw out his death sentence in a 1989 decision
also written by O'Connor. In that chapter of the Penry case, the
court denied Penry's lawyers' request for a general ban on
executing the mentally retarded.
But
the court said Penry deserved a new trial because Texas juries at
the time operated under instructions which, the court said, gave
juries no way to consider mental retardation as a reason to give
defendants a life sentence instead of death. Texas changed those
rules in 1991, but in the meantime Penry had been tried again,
convicted, and sentenced to death.
The
judge in that second proceeding attempted to incorporate the
court's 1989 ruling into his jury instructions, but yesterday the
court held that those instructions were unclear and no fairer to
Penry than the ones it struck down in 1989.
According
to Jeff Pokorak, a Texas law professor who represents capital
defendants in the state, perhaps five other Texas death row
inmates were also sentenced around the time of Penry's second
trial and would therefore benefit from yesterday's ruling.
The
Supreme Court's decision sends the case back to local authorities
for a new sentencing proceeding. Penry's attorney, Robert Smith,
said he would seek to persuade state officials to drop the death
penalty in exchange for Penry's agreement to accept a life
sentence and waive his right to parole.
But
Hohn said his office is exploring all its options, consulting with
the murder victim's family and waiting to see what will happen
with the recently passed Texas bill and, perhaps, next term's
Supreme Court case.
That
case involves a convicted murderer in North Carolina, Ernest
McCarver, whose lawyers contend that he is mentally retarded and
that it is time for the Supreme Court to reconsider its holding in
the 1989 Penry case, which authorized executions of the mentally
retarded.
In
that case, the court said that it could ban the practice if there
was a national consensus against it, but held that no such
consensus yet existed since hardly any states had decided to
outlaw executions of the retarded.
In
the interim, 12 of the 38 states that have a death penalty have
prohibited executions of the mentally retarded.
O'Connor's
opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M.
Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G.
Breyer. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Chief Justice William
H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, dissented, arguing that there was
no basis for second-guessing lower courts that had upheld Penry's
sentence.
"I
simply do not share the Court's confusion as to how a juror could
consider mitigating evidence," Thomas wrote. The case is
Penry v. Johnson, No. 00-6677.
Separately, the justices ruled yesterday that there is
no legal limit on the amount of money courts may award employees
who are sexually harassed to compensate them for the time they
spend waiting to be reinstated or to move on to other employment
after they win their case.
Supreme
Court Gives Reprieve to a Retarded Killer in Texas
David
Stout New York Times Service
Tuesday, June 5, 2001
WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court on Monday spared the life of a retarded killer,
declaring that Texas prosecutors failed to clearly instruct jurors
on how they could evaluate the defendant's mental capacity.
By
6 to 3, the court overturned the death sentence imposed on Johnny
Paul Penry, whose I.Q. has been estimated at 51 to 60 and who,
according to his lawyers, is largely unable to comprehend the
judicial proceedings around him. The ruling Monday was a narrow
one, applying only to Mr. Penry, whose fate remains uncertain,
although his prospects for escaping a lethal injection look better
than they have in years. His case was sent back to the lower
courts.
Meanwhile,
the governor of Texas has yet to decide whether to sign a bill
recently passed by the Texas legislature that would ban the
execution of mentally retarded convicts.
The
Supreme Court is expected to rule within a year on a far broader
North Carolina case addressing the issue of whether all executions
of retarded people ought to be outlawed as unconstitutional.
The
ruling Monday was the second by the high court voiding a death
sentence pronounced upon Mr. Penry, who was on parole after
serving a sentence for rape, when he raped and killed Pamela
Moseley Carpenter - sister of the former Washington Redskins
player Mark Moseley - on Oct. 25, 1979. The victim was stabbed
with the scissors she had been using to make Halloween decorations,
but she was able to describe her attacker before dying.
Mr.
Penry was convicted of murder in 1980 and sentenced to death. In
1989, his case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that the
jury had been inadequately instructed on how to consider the
defendant's intellectual level as a possible mitigating factor
against a death sentence. Generally speaking, a person with an
I.Q. below 70 is considered retarded.
In
1990, Mr. Penry was convicted again. And again, during the penalty
phase of the trial, the defense offered extensive evidence that
Mr. Penry was severely retarded and had been terribly abused as a
child.
The
verdict form that Mr. Penry's second jury received was the same
given to the jurors in the first trial. It contained three
questions: First, was the conduct that caused the victim's death
deliberate? Second, did the defendant present a continuing threat
to society? Third, was the conduct that caused the death
unreasonable in response to any provocation by the victim?
The only difference in the second trial was an
instruction by the judge that, if the jurors wanted to give effect
to any mitigating circumstances and spare the defendant's life,
they should answer "no" to any one of the three
questions. The jury answered "yes" to all. On Monday,
the high court held that the instructions in the second trial
still did not pass muster. Among other things, the supposedly
clarifying comments from the judge and lawyers were "a
distant and convoluted memory by the time the jurors began their
deliberations," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the
majority. She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony
Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Chronology
of Events in Penry Case
Monday
June 4
A
chronology of events leading to Monday's U.S. Supreme Court
decision to overturn the death sentence of Johnny Paul
Penry, a mentally retarded convicted killer:
-May
1966: John Paul Penry, 10, diagnosed by the Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Division of the University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston as having mental retardation and behavioral disturbance.
Tests put his IQ at 56.
-May
1968: Penry admitted to the Mexia State School for the mentally
retarded and is later released.
-Sept.
17, 1973: Following an arrest for arson, Penry is sent to the
Austin State Hospital where he is diagnosed as having organic
brain syndrome with psychosis due to repeated trauma and mild
retardation.
-Oct.
3, 1973: Penry is sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the mentally
ill. Testing puts his IQ at 63.
-February
1977: Penry is arrested and pleads guilty to rape; sentenced to
five years in prison.
-July
29, 1977: Penry leaves Polk County Jail and enters state prison.
-July
10, 1979: Penry paroled to Polk County.
-Oct.
25, 1979: Pamela Moseley Carpenter is raped, stabbed and fatally
beaten at her home in Livingston. Within hours of her death, Penry
confesses to the crime.
-March
13, 1980: A jury finds Penry mentally competent to be tried for
capital murder.
-April
1, 1980: Penry found guilty of capital murder.
-April
2, 1980: Jury deliberates 46 minutes before deciding Penry should
be put to eath.
-April
9, 1980: Penry arrives on death row.
-January
1985: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirms Penry's conviction
and death sentence.
-January
1986: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review Penry's conviction.
-May
6, 1986: Penry, moved to cell outside death chamber, receives
federal court reprieve hours before his scheduled execution.
-June
1989: U.S. Supreme Court reverses 5th U.S. Circuit Court ruling
denying federal habeas relief and orders new trial so a jury can
consider Penry's mental retardation during punishment
deliberations.
-May
1990: Penry found legally competent to stand trial a second time.
-July
1990: Penry retried and convicted of capital murder, sentenced to
death.
-Feb.
22, 1995: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirms conviction.
-Dec.
3, 1997: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denies Penry application
for state habeas relief.
-March
30, 1999: Federal district court denies relief and permission to
appeal.
-June
20, 2000: 5th Circuit denies permission to appeal.
-July
25, 2000: 5th Circuit denies rehearing.
-Nov.
13, 2000: Penry, moved to cell outside death chamber, receives
Supreme Court reprieve hours before his scheduled execution.
-March
27: Supreme Court hears arguments in Penry case.
-May
26: Legislature passes bill that would ban mentally retarded from
being executed. Gov. Rick Perry has not said whether he will sign
the bill.
-June 4: U.S. Supreme Court overturns Penry's death
sentence, ruling 6-3 that jurors did not get clear instructions
about how to weigh the defendant's mental abilities against the
severity of his crime. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that
the Texas court properly admitted evidence of Penry's future
dangerousness.
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