Tennessee Supreme Court Finds Execution of Mentally Retarded Unconstitutional

     The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that executing individuals with mental retardation is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by both the Tennessee and U.S. Constitutions. ''We conclude that there is compelling evidence that the execution of mentally retarded individuals violates the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society both nationally and in the state,'' wrote Justice Riley Anderson in the majority opinion.  In addition, the court held, ''We also have determined that the execution of any mentally retarded individuals, who by definition have significantly sub-average intelligence functioning and deficits in adaptive behavior, is grossly disproportionate and serves no valid penological purpose.'' 

     Although the state passed a law to prohibit such executions in 1990, the statute did not apply retroactively.  (Associated Press, 12/4/01) The U.S. Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of executing those with mental retardation this term. 

THE TENNESSEAN

Court expands ban on executing retarded

 A handful of death row inmates could get their death sentences reduced to life imprisonment, lawyers in the field said, thanks to a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that says both the Tennessee and federal constitutions bar executing anyone who is mentally retarded.

 The state's highest court ruled yesterday that the principle applies in all relevant death penalty cases tried since 1977, when Tennessee's death-penalty statute took effect, even though the Tennessee General Assembly did not bar executions of prisoners who are mentally retarded until 1990.

 But the court held, by a vote of 3-2, that the principle underlying the statute should apply to everyone sentenced to death for murder in the past 24 years.

 The Supreme Court majority said that executing a mentally retarded individual would violate "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society both nationally and in the state of Tennessee."

 Justices E. Riley Anderson, Frank Drowota and Adolpho A. Birch said in the majority opinion that the court's minority, Justices William M. Barker and Janice Holder, "largely ignored ... the substantial impairments of all mentally retarded individuals," including their ability to respond to pressures like being interrogated by police.

 The 1990 Tennessee statute defines mental retardation as an intelligence quotient of 70 or below, plus "deficits in adaptive behavior," which must have become obvious by age 18.

 The court majority noted that only about 1% of the general population can be classified as mentally retarded.

 Lawyers who work with inmates on death row say they believe that a slightly higher percentage of the people there are mentally retarded, and the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., says that about 5% of the 745 people executed in the United States since 1976 were mentally retarded.

 "I would say that there are many people on death row who are mentally ill or have low intelligence,'' said Paul Morrow, a lawyer with Tennessee's post-conviction defender office, which represents death-sentenced prisoners late in the appeals process.

 But Morrow said he could not put a number on just how many of the 93 men and two women awaiting execution in Tennessee would meet the legal standard for mental retardation.

 The Supreme Court split 3-2 on whether Heck Van Tran, who was sentenced to death for murdering an elderly woman during a restaurant robbery in Memphis in 1987, should be able to claim that his death sentence should be overturned because of IQ tests he took in the past few years.

 Justices Barker and Holder said that Tran's lawyers have not shown that his "mild" mental retardation affected his understanding of what he did when he joined 3 other men in robbing a restaurant. A total of 3 restaurant employees, all members of the same Chinese-American family, were killed during the robbery.

 Barker and Holder also said Tran, a Vietnamese refugee, should not be allowed to raise mental retardation as an issue this late in the appeals process.

 The Supreme Court majority said that "fundamental fairness" required them to send Tran's case back to a trial judge in Memphis, for a hearing on whether he fits the 1990 statute's definition of mental retardation.

 Tran's lawyers have also contended that he should not be executed because he is legally insane. The state Supreme Court ruled early last year that Tran would have to wait until he had exhausted all of his other legal remedies before he could raise insanity as a bar to execution.

 But if Tran's lawyers can prove that he meets the definition for mental retardation, his death sentence will be reduced to life imprisonment.

 Tran's attorneys presented evidence in 1997 that he had a long history of mental retardation and that he had scored 67 on a recent IQ test, but an expert hired by the prosecution testified the test results were incorrectly calculated and Tran's score was actually 72.

 Tran was tested again late in 1999, and he scored 65 on a revised version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Brock Mehler, one of his lawyers, said yesterday.

 Lawyers for one other death row inmate, Eddie Leroy Harris, whose appeal is pending in federal court in Knoxville, have cited his mental retardation as grounds for overturning the death sentence he received for murdering 2 employees of a Gatlinburg motel in 1986.

 One of Harris' attorneys, Tom Dillard of Knoxville, said he hopes that yesterday's Supreme Court ruling will prompt the state attorney general's office to agree that Harris' sentence should be reduced to life imprisonment.

 2 Memphis men who were sentenced to death for murder, Tony Bobo and Sylvester Smith, have had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment - at least in part because their lawyers presented proof that they were mentally retarded.

 Tony Bobo was convicted of murdering three people in seven weeks in his hometown of Memphis in 1982-83, when he was 19. He was sentenced to death for 1 of those slayings, and he was subsequently convicted of killing 2 fellow inmates on death row here, in 1985 and 1987.

 But Shelby County prosecutors agreed in 1995 to reduce Bobo's death sentence to life imprisonment, after a lawyer presented proof that Bobo had suffered brain damage at birth, experienced violent seizures in grade school and scored just below 70 on IQ tests.