Can
low-IQ convicts be put on death row? The Supreme Court considers
the moral questions tomorrow.
By
Warren Richey ([email protected]) Staff writer of The Christian
Science Monitor
WASHINGTON
Culpability is a word not likely found in Johnny Paul Penry's
vocabulary. But it is a legal concept that might well save his
life. Mr. Penry, a Texas death-row inmate with an IQ of 54, is at
the center of a US Supreme Court case examining under what
circumstances mentally retarded defendants may face capital
punishment. Penry has twice been convicted of the 1979 rape and
murder of 22-year-old Pamela Carpenter. And twice juries have
voted to send him to his death. But what brings his case to the
nation's highest court for the second time in 12 years is the
concept of culpability and a fundamental moral question behind it
- whether a convicted killer who is mentally retarded has a full
enough understanding of his wrongdoing to justify a death sentence.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Penry v.
Johnson, giving justices an opportunity to clarify to what extent
judges and jurors should take into consideration a defendant's
mental retardation (those with an IQ of 70 and below) when
weighing a death sentence. There is more riding on the case than
just Penry's fate. Other courts are watching the outcome for
guidance, including a federal appeals court in St. Louis, which
earlier this month stayed the execution of Antonio Richardson, who
is described as borderline mentally retarded and was 16 when he
was involved in the 1991 murder of two sisters. Death-penalty
opponents and mental-health activists are also closely following
the case with the hope that the high court will consider declaring
a national ban on executing mentally retarded criminals. Currently,
13 states ban death sentences for mentally retarded defendants.
Mitigating factors Penry's lawyer, Robert Smith, says that his
client's mental disability and substantial abuse as a child do not
excuse his criminal behavior. But Mr. Smith says they are
important mitigating factors that should weigh in the balance
during jury deliberations. "Finding that a horrible crime
occurred here and that the defendant is responsible for it is not
quite the same as if this horrible crime had been committed by
someone who is mentally normal and had not been tortured by his
mother from birth," Smith says. "This takes enough of
the guilt off his shoulders to make the difference between a life
sentence and a death sentence." In 1989, the first time the
high court considered Penry's case, a majority of justices upheld
the constitutionality of executing mentally retarded criminals.
But the court nonetheless threw out Penry's death sentence, ruling
that the jury, when deliberating whether to sentence him to death,
had not been given an opportunity to consider Penry's mental
disability and the abuse he had suffered as a child. The justices
remanded the case back to Texas with instructions that jurors be
permitted to fully consider any mitigating evidence that might
convince them that death was not an appropriate sentence for Penry.
The 1989 decision, written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, says in
part: "Punishment should be directly related to the personal
culpability of the criminal defendant." She adds: "It is
not enough simply to allow the defendant to present mitigating
evidence to the sentencer. The sentencer must also be able to
consider and give effect to that evidence in imposing sentence."
The decision maintains that only this procedure will lead to a
"reliable determination" and ensure the defendant is
treated as a "uniquely individual human being." At the
time of the 1989 decision, then-Justice William Brennan wrote a
dissent that accurately predicted the next stage in Penry's case.
"When Johnny Penry is resentenced, absent a change in Texas
law there will be nothing to prevent the jury, acting lawfully,
from sentencing him to death once again - even though it finds his
culpability significantly reduced by reason of mental retardation,"
he wrote. Rather than allowing a judge or jury to make such a
difficult determination, Justice Brennan favored a blanket ban on
executing anyone found to be mentally retarded. In Brennan's view,
the Constitution requires that only those who are fully
blameworthy - and have a full understanding of the wrong they have
done - should face the death penalty. But the Supreme Court
majority in the first Penry case didn't see it that way. They
indicated that judges and juries could make such moral decisions.
Texas procedures contested The issue arising in Penry's second
death sentence isn't that the jury handed down the wrong sentence.
The issue is that the mechanism established under Texas law for
death-sentence deliberations may not have allowed for adequate
weight to be given to any mitigating evidence presented by the
defendant - including his mental retardation. Texas law has been
rewritten since the 1989 Supreme Court decision to take into
account the so-called Penry question, which jurors must answer
prior to issuing a death sentence. But, ironically, the new rule
came too late to actually apply to Penry. In their brief to the
court, Texas prosecutors argue that informal instructions to the
jury during Penry's second trial were more than enough to satisfy
any concerns about the fairness and constitutionality of the
sentence. Lawyers for Penry counter that the judge didn't do
enough to make it clear to jurors that they must consider all
mitigating evidence before returning a death sentence. What makes
such cases so difficult is that the heinousness of the crime can
all but outweigh in the minds of jurors any mitigating evidence.
Smith, Penry's lawyer, says he isn't worried about attempts by
prosecutors to draw on sympathy for the crime victim. "My
theory of human nature is that if you are capable of feeling
sympathy for the victim, then you are still capable of feeling
sympathy for Johnny Penry," he says. "His story is a
very, very pathetic story. There is no doubt that Pamela Carpenter
was a victim, but there is no doubt that he was also a victim of
horrible things."
|