- August 4

 N.C. Bans Execution of Retarded

RALEIGH, N.C. - Gov. Mike Easley on Saturday signed legislation that bans executions of the mentally retarded.``The prosecutors and legislators feel this is a fair bill,'' Easley said in a statement Saturday. ``I have sincere reservations because I support the death penalty and I believe that a defendant who knows right from wrong, and is capable of assisting his counsel in his defense in court, should be subject to the same punishment as anyone else.''Easley, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, agreed to sign the legislation because of the consensus of support. He said support from the state district attorney's association and Attorney General Roy Cooper were ``compelling factors'' in his decision.Even without the governor's signature, the bill would have become law Sunday barring a veto.Seventeen other states and the federal government already had some kind of ban on executions of the mentally retarded, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.``North Carolina is joining what is a national viewpoint that it is wrong to execute the mentally retarded, that we should not be killing people with the minds of children,'' said Jonathan Broun, a lawyer with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation.The new law would define as mentally retarded anyone whose IQ was recorded at 70 or lower before the age of 18, with ``significant limitations in adaptive functioning'' at the same time. A mentally retarded person still could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder.The legislation requires a unanimous jury decision to find that a murder defendant is mentally retarded and not subject to the death penalty.Lawmakers approved the ban Tuesday.The law will apply to capital cases that begin after Oct. 1, though current death row inmates would have several months to seek hearings on the issue.Opponents of the legislation argued that supporters were trying to use it to gut the death penalty in North Carolina.

-  August 4, 2001

North Carolina to Prohibit Execution of the Retarded

By RAYMOND BONNERNorth Carolina's governor plans to sign legislation that bars the execution of the mentally retarded, his office said late yesterday afternoon, making the state the fifth to enact such legislation this year.A person is considered mentally retarded under the new North Carolina measure if his I.Q. is below 70 and he has significant difficulty in performing basic functions of life, including communicating, taking care of himself, living at home or working.The State Senate passed the measure on Tuesday, 47 to 1. A spokesman for Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Democrat, declined to comment beyond saying that the governor intended to sign the bill before going out of the state tomorrow on business.Unlike the laws in most other states that bar the execution of the mentally retarded, the North Carolina measure is retroactive.The far broader, and more immediate, effect of the new law will be on the case of Ernest P. McCarver, which is now before the United States Supreme Court. Mr. McCarver is a North Carolina death row inmate who was convicted in 1987 of stabbing to death a fellow cafeteria worker. The case is scheduled for argument this fall on whether executing the mentally retarded is "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment.North Carolina officials plan to advise the court on Monday of the new legislation and argue that the McCarver case is therefore moot, officials said.Mr. McCarver's lawyers want the court to keep the case and decide the broad constitutional issue, which they believe will be in their favor."I'm glad the governor is going to sign the bill," Mr. McCarver's lawyer, Seth R. Cohen, said. "Anything we can do to save Ernie's life is paramount."A favorable decision by the court would give Mr. McCarver constitutional, as well as statutory, protection, Mr. Cohen said.North Carolina officials have said they plan to challenge Mr. McCarver's claim that he is mentally retarded. Prosecutors say Mr. McCarver's I.Q. is in the mid-70's; his lawyers say it is 67.The McCarver case drew an unusual friend-of-the-court brief, from a group of American diplomats. Calling the execution of the mentally retarded a "cruel and uncivilized practice," the diplomats argued that it diminishes the United States' moral authority and makes it easier for authoritarian countries to duck criticism of their human rights record.The brief was signed by nine diplomats with more than 200 years of combined service, including Thomas R. Pickering, who held more ambassadorial posts than any other individual in American diplomatic history.If the Supreme Court agrees that the McCarver case is moot in light of the new legislation, which legal experts said was likely, the justices could use two other cases to address the broader constitutional question. In June, the court granted a stay of execution to an Alabama death row inmate, Glenn William Holladay, whose I.Q. is 69. Alabama does not bar the execution of the mentally retarded.Earlier this year, the court stayed the execution of Antonio Richardson in Missouri. Mr. Richardson, who was 16 at the time of the crime, has an I.Q. of 70, his lawyer said.Last month, Missouri enacted a law barring the execution of the retarded, but it was not retroactive.Connecticut, Arizona and Florida have also enacted laws this year prohibiting the execution of someone who is retarded. Of the 38 states with the death penalty, 18 now bar the death penalty for someone who was mentally retarded at the time of the crime, as does the District of Columbia and the federal government.