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U.S. ruling prohibits execution of retarded

Divided bench rules controversial measure unconstitutional

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 WASHINGTON � A divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself today and ruled that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional.

 The most immediate effect of the ruling will be in the 20 states that allowed execution of the retarded up to now. Presumably, dozens or perhaps hundreds of inmates in those states will now argue that they are retarded, and that their sentences should be converted to life in prison.

 The six-three ruling is confined to mentally retarded defendants convicted of murder and does not address the constitutionality of capital punishment in general.

 The majority's view reflects changes in public attitudes on the issue since the court declared such executions constitutional in 1989. Then, only two states that used capital punishment outlawed the practice for the retarded. Now, 18 states prohibit it.

 "It is not so much the number of these states that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of the change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

 Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. The three, the court's most conservative members, telegraphed their views earlier this month, when they complained bitterly about reprieves the court majority had granted to two Texas inmates who claim they are retarded.

 The court ruled in favour of a Virginia inmate, Daryl Renard Atkins, who was convicted of shooting an air force enlisted man for beer money in 1996. Atkins' lawyers say he has an IQ of 59 and has never lived on his own or held a job.

 In the future, the ruling will mean that people arrested for a killing will not face a potential death sentence if they can show they are retarded, generally defined as having an IQ of 70 or lower.

 The dissenting justices said the majority went too far in looking at factors beyond the state laws.

 The majority puts too much stock in opinion polls and the views of national and international observers, Rehnquist wrote.

 "Believing this view to be seriously mistaken, I dissent," Rehnquist said. Rehnquist omitted the customary word "respectfully" before "dissent."

 The Justice Project, a group that monitors the criminal justice system for any inequities, applauded the ruling, saying it ``reflects a growing national concern that the administration of the death penalty is unfair. This decision comes at a time when there is growing agreement among death penalty proponents and opponents alike that the capital punishment system is broken."

 The case turned on the 8th Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual punishments," and how to define those terms today.

 Times change, and with them public sentiment about what is appropriate punishment for various crimes, the court has observed in the past. For example, at various times in the country's history it was considered acceptable to flog people in public, or to execute those convicted of rape.

 Using elected legislatures as a barometer, the court majority concluded that the public no longer accepts the notion that execution is appropriate for a killer who may lack the intelligence to fully understand his crime.

 "The practice ... has become unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it," Stevens wrote for himself and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

 "This consensus unquestionably reflects widespread judgment about the relative culpability of mentally retarded offenders, and the relationship between mental retardation and the penological purposes served by the death penalty," Stevens wrote.

 Many mentally retarded defendants know right from wrong, but they are more likely to act on impulse or to be swayed by others in a group, Stevens wrote.

 "Their deficiencies do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability."

 Counting the 12 states that do not allow capital punishment at all, 30 states prohibit execution of the retarded.

 The number of states that banned the practice increased ninefold between the court's last ruling on the issue and the time it heard arguments in Atkins' case. The court was forced to toss out a North Carolina case it originally selected to reconsider the retardation question last year, because that state banned the practice before the court could hear the case.

 Virginia authorities argued that Atkins planned his crime and understood afterward what he had done. The state claimed he was no less culpable for the crime than a person of normal intelligence.

 Atkins had 20 previous felonies on his record at the time of the killing, the state argued. Atkins gave a detailed confession to police when he was arrested, describing how he and an accomplice kidnapped the victim, forced him to withdraw cash from a bank teller machine and then drove him to a deserted field and shot him eight times.

 O'Connor wrote the five-four decision in 1989 upholding execution of the retarded.

 There was "insufficient evidence of a national consensus" against the executions to determine that they were unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, she wrote then.

 President George W. Bush has said he opposes executing the mentally retarded. Bush's successor as governor of Texas vetoed a ban on the practice. 

US Supreme Court bans execution of mentally retarded

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

21 June 2002

The US Supreme Court made a landmark decision yesterday when it ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded was unconstitutional. Its decision that the punishment was "cruel and unusual" will have a huge and immediate effect in more than 30 US states that still put to death prisoners with an IQ of below 70.

 The court was divided 6-3 over the issue with dissenting justices bitterly criticising the decision that overturns one of its own previous rulings from 1989 � when it said a convicted prisoner's mental state was not an issue.

 While yesterday's ruling has no direct effect on the execution of non-retarded prisoners � 38 of the 50 US states still execute people � it does reflect a growing public concern about the fairness of the death penalty system. "It is not so much the number of these states that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of the change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the court's judgment.

 "The practice ... has become unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it. This consensus unquestionably reflects widespread judgment about the relative culpability of mentally-retarded offenders, and the relationship between mental retardation and the penological purposes served by the death penalty."

 The decision was seized on as a considerable victory by death penalty opponents and campaigners. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said: "Thirty states have either banned the death penalty altogether or stopped the execution of those with mental retardation. There is no doubt there is a national consensus on this issue. Concerns remain about many other aspects of the death penalty but at least today we have stopped a practice most Americans and the rest of the world finds abhorrent."

 The ruling came as it ruled on the case of Daryl Atkins, a prisoner from Virginia who was convicted of shooting an Air Force member for beer money in 1996. Atkins' lawyers argued that he has an IQ of 59, and has never lived on his own nor held a job. The state countered by arguing that Atkins had planned his crime, understood what he had done and was no less culpable for the crime than a person of normal intelligence.

 The Supreme Court's decision that executing Atkins would be a "cruel and unusual punishment", and therefore violates his rights established under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, will have a widescale effect in the 20 states that, until now, have still executed retarded prisoners. Commentators said dozens or even hundreds of death row inmates in those states will argue they are retarded and their sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment.

 The issue divided the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissenting. The trio � the court's most conservative members � made clear their views earlier this month when they complained stridently about reprieves the court majority had granted to two Texas inmates who claim they are retarded.

 "Believing this view to be seriously mistaken, I dissent," Mr Rehnquist wrote, omitting the customary word "respectfully" before "dissent".

 Mr Scalia, in a separate dissent, wrote: "Seldom has an opinion of this court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members." Opponents to the death penalty say that, since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 35 of the more than 775 executed prisoners showed evidence of mental retardation, with an IQ of 70 or lower. An average IQ is about 100.

 The ruling comes at a time of growing national debate about capital punishment, sparked in part by the recent exoneration of death-row inmates because of DNA evidence and new calls for state moratoriums on executions. Maryland has been the most recent state to order a moratorium when its governor, Parris Glendening, announced last month that "reasonable questions have been raised in Maryland and across the country about the application of the death penalty".

 The move followed a similar decision in Illinois, where executions were halted in 2000, after 13 death row inmates were exonerated, including one who had ordered his last meal.

 Justice: Key case

 One of the most notorious cases involving the execution of a retarded prisoner was that of Ricky Ray Rector who was put to death by lethal injection in 1992 for murder.

 The case is remembered because Bill Clinton, the then Arkansas governor, returned from the New Hampshire presidential primary to oversee the execution in an effort to rebut claims he was soft on the death penalty.

 Rector, who was said to be brain-damaged, weighed 300lbs and it took 45 minutes to find a vein for the injection. The medical administrator said guards and 11 medical staff had been needed. "I'm not going to take anything away from Ricky Ray Rector and the help he gave us with our task ... He helped."

 Most memorable, however, were Rector's last words, which his lawyers said underlined his lack of awareness. When presented with his final meal he asked whether he could save the dessert "for after".

 Andrew Buncombe

Death penalty's new exception

Supreme Court rules mentally retarded can't be executed

 Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer

June 20, 2002  

 In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said today that the Constitution bans the death penalty for those who are mentally retarded.

 By a 6-3 vote, the justices made a rare exception to enforcing the death penalty, saying that executing the mentally retarded is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution.

 The court also acknowledged the growing number of states that have passed laws prohibiting capital punishment for mentally retarded offenders.

 The ruling is expected to have a dramatic effect in California and 19 other states that allow executing the mentally retarded.

 However, the actual number of condemned inmates whose lives will be spared is expected to be relatively small.

 Only 2.5 percent of the general population nationwide is mentally retarded.

 The percentage is slightly higher -- roughly 4 percent -- among the U.S. prison population, but no one knows for sure now many of the nation's 3,711 inmates on death row are mentally retarded.

 The court's decision was a dramatic reversal from a ruling in 1989, when the court last addressed the issue. By a bare 5-4 majority, the justices then said there was no national consensus or evolving standard of decency against executing the mentally retarded.

 But in today's ruling, the court noted that in 1989, only two states had passed laws barring capital punishment for the mentally retarded.

 Since then, 16 states, as well as the federal government, have enacted prohibitions.

 "It is not so much the number of these states that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of the change," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion.

 Given the support for anti-crime legislation, he said, the growing number of states with bans "provides powerful evidence that today's society views mentally retarded offenders as categorically less culpable than the average criminal."

 "Those mentally retarded people who meet the law's requirements for criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes," he said. But, he said, the death penalty should reserved for the most culpable.

 "Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment and control of their impulses, however," he said, "they do not act with the level of normal culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct."

 The ruling overturns the death sentence for a Virginia inmate whose lawyers say that he is mentally retarded.

 Daryl R. Atkins was an 18-year-old high school dropout with an IQ of 59 when he abducted, robbed and shot a man to death in August 1996.

 In his decision, Stevens noted that in the 20 states with no bans, executions of the mentally retarded are uncommon.

 "The practice, therefore, has become truly unusual," he said, 'and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it."

 He cautioned that only those who qualify as mentally retarded will fall within the exception.

 People are considered retarded if they have an IQ of 70 or less and are deficient in certain basic skills, communicative abilities and understanding.

 Unlike insanity or mental illness, which can arise in adulthood, mental retardation is a developmental disorder that, by definition, must show up by age 18.

 While mentally retarded people can stand trial because they know the difference between right and wrong, Stevens said, their limited intelligence and comprehension make them less culpable.

 The mentally retarded, he concluded, face a special risk of wrongful execution because they are likely to unwittingly confess to crimes they did not commit, cannot effectively assist their lawyers, typically make poor witnesses, and often laugh and act inappropriately in front of a jury.

 In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that majority placed inappropriate weight on the views of professional and religious organizations and opinion polls in reaching its conclusion.

 "I would take issue with the blind-faith credence it accords the opinion polls brought to our attention," he said.

20 June, 2002

US court ruling limits death penalty

 Of the 38 death penalty states, 18 already spare the mentally retarded

 The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that executing mentally retarded killers is unconstitutional because it is "cruel and unusual" punishment.

While the 6-3 ruling does not affect the overall legality of the death penalty in the United States, it will force the 20 states that still allow the execution of the mentally retarded to change.

 "We are not persuaded that the execution of mentally retarded criminals will measurably advance the deterrent or the retributive purpose of the death penalty," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his majority opinion.

  Atkins' lawyers say he has an IQ below 60

 The court had previously declared the execution of the mentally retarded legal in 1989.

 But since then, the number of states with the death penalty to ban capital punishment for inmates deemed mentally retarded has risen to 18 from just two.

 It was not known how many inmates on death row could be considered mentally retarded - a term generally used to refer to people with IQ scores below 70. (A score of 100 is considered average.)

 But the ruling was likely to mean that lawyers for many death row inmates will request reviews of their client's cases.

 At least today we have stopped a practice that most Americans and the rest of the world finds abhorrent

 Richard Dieter, Death Penalty Information Center 

 The specific case before the Supreme Court was that of Virginia man Daryl Renard Atkins, who was convicted of killing a man - by shooting him eight times - after robbing him of $200 in 1996.

 Mr Atkins' lawyers said he had an IQ of just 59, and had never been able to live independently or work.

 The Supreme Court agreed that he should not face capital punishment because the mentally retarded are less likely to understand the severity of their crimes, and are less morally culpable.

 Death penalty opponents have also argued that the mentally retarded are more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit.

 As many as 35 of the more than 750 people executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 are believed to have shown signs of mental retardation.

 'National consensus'

 Opponents of the death penalty welcomed the ruling on Thursday.

 "There is no doubt that there is now a national consensus on the issue," said Richard Dieter, head of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.

 "Concerns remain about many other aspects of the death penalty, but at least today we have stopped a practice that most Americans and the rest of the world finds abhorrent," he said in a statement.

 The Supreme Court's three most conservative members - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - dissented.

JUNE 20, 2002:

 USA: Juvenile Offenders Next in Death Penalty Fight

 U.S. death penalty opponents, elated at the Supreme Court's decision to outlaw the execution of the mentally retarded, said on Thursday their next big battle would be to eliminate the execution of juveniles.

 "The Supreme Court has recognized that executing mentally retarded people violates the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," said Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

 "The next step for the court should be to apply the same, exact standard to the execution of youthful offenders," Hawkins said in a statement.

 In recent years, death penalty opponents have adopted a "salami slicer" strategy with some success. Instead of mounting an all-out assault on capital punishment, which public opinion polls suggest is still supported by around 2/3 of electorate, they have pointed out injustices in the way the death penalty is applied while attacking the execution of specific classes of offenders.

 Across the nation, 83 people are currently on death row for crimes committed while under the age of 18. 2 are facing execution next month, both in Texas.

 T.J. Jones, is scheduled to die Aug. 8 for murdering an elderly man in 1994 when he was 17. Toronto Patterson, is set to die Aug. 28 for a triple murder of his cousin and her 2 daughters, also committed in 1995 when he was 17.

 "The next logical arena to challenge capital punishment will be the execution of minors," said Rick Halperin, who teaches human rights at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and heads the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

 "The concept of an evolving standard of decency will now shift to the constitutionality of killing juvenile offenders but we're looking at a very long battle."

 Abraham Bonowitz, of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the argument the Supreme Court applied to the mentally retarded of "diminished culpability" could also be applied to juveniles.

 "In the United States, we set the age of adulthood at 18. Voting begins at 18; the ability to join the armed forces begins at 18. There is an understanding that younger people have fewer rights and fewer responsibilities and are therefore less culpable," he said.

 Currently, 28 states exclude the execution of juvenile offenders, including the 12 states that ban all executions. Most of the rest allow the execution of those who committed crimes aged 16 or over, while four have a minimum age of 17.

 Worldwide, the United States is one of five nations that executes people who committed crimes before the age of 18, the others being Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia.

 Between 1973 and 2000, 196 juveniles were sentenced to death, according to the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a branch of the U.S. Justice Department.

 Of these, 13 were aged 15, 47 were aged 16 and the rest aged 17 when they committed their crimes. However, just over half of these sentences were later revised or reversed.

 One problem death penalty opponents face is that by the time juvenile offenders are put to death, they have typically spent several years on death row and are no longer juveniles.

 The Supreme Court had considered the question of the death penalty for juveniles several times.

 In 1987, it ruled that executing children under 15 constituted cruel and unusual punishment. But the following year, in a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Constitution did not prohibit the death penalty for crimes committed at age 16 or 17.

  ABC News  

What Is Mentally Retarded?

Supreme Court Ruling Means States Will Have to Define It

 With the Supreme Court's decision today to ban the execution of mentally retarded criminals, courts across the country will have to answer the question: Just what does it mean to be mentally retarded?

 The court, in deciding 6-3 that Virginia inmate Daryl Renard Atkins could not be executed because he is mentally retarded, stated that the most fundamental feature of mental retardation is "impaired intellectual ability," but just what the definition of that impairment is varies from state to state.

 For most, the diagnosis is based on a combination of IQ score and observed intellectual capacity, and is derived from medical dictionaries and the Developmental Disabilities Act.

 Though there are many ways to describe mental retardation, the court's decision will prompt a closer look at the disability's criteria.

 "There's a remarkable degree of consensus in the definitions," said Doreen Croser, executive director of the American Association on Mental Retardation, based in Washington, D.C.

 Croser said her organization will have to update its Web site and flesh out this definition, anticipating reaction to the court's decision.

 The AAMR defines mental retardation as "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with related limitations in two or more of the following applicable adaptive skill areas: communication, self-care, home living, social skills, community use, self-direction, health and safety, functional academics, leisure and work."

 IQ of 70 Is Threshold

 The court's decision defined mental retardation as "affecting the most basic skills, such as fact retention, problem solving and concentration. It also impedes more abstract thought processes, such as the ability to reason and make logical connections."

 Atkins' appeal before the court cited the defendant's score of 59 on IQ tests as evidence that he was operating below typical mental capacity when he shot a man over beer money in 1996. An average score on the test ranges from 85-115, and doctors say mental retardation begins at scores below 70.

 Croser said the AAMR agrees with the threshold of 70 on the IQ test, but she said the diagnosis is based largely on clinical judgment, with some who are judged as mentally retarded scoring as high as 75.

 Lawyers maintain that a criminal's life won't hinge on how well he or she answers true-or-false questions, and won't be saved if the defendant tries to score poorly on a test. School records often are used as a factor in judging mental capacity, and the latest a diagnosis could be made is age 21.

 "A person would have been diagnosed well before they entered the criminal justice system," said Barbara Ransom, a civil rights attorney in Philadelphia. "The idea that someone would be tested on the eve of their execution is farfetched."

 Though the decision only applies to about 2.5 % of the population, some see the move to exclude an entire class of people from the death penalty as a sign of more to come.

 "It's a wonderful moment, but there's more work to do," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of Amnesty International's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty.

 The decision could contain precedents that would lead the Supreme Court to ban the execution of other groups, such as juveniles, Gunawardena-Vaughn said.