Posted on 08/05/2005 12:51:32 PM PDT by SmithL
YORKTOWN, Va. - A jury concluded Friday that a death row inmate whose case led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling is not mentally retarded, clearing the way for his execution later this year.
Jurors deliberated 13 hours over two days before finding Daryl Atkins not to be mentally retarded.
The Supreme Court ruled in Atkins' case three years ago that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional. The court, however, left it up to states to determine whether inmates are retarded.
If the jury had deemed Atkins retarded, he would have been spared execution and instead sentenced to life in prison for the robbery and slaying of an Air Force enlisted man.
Close call, but this plant should be planted!
And when the supreme court made this ruling, a whole new class of psychologists-opposed-to-the-death-penalty sprang up, willing to say anyone was retarded. The "gray area" on an IQ test is huge.
This is cached, but it's a really excellent article on "expert testimony" on DP appeals regarding mental retardation.
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:its7C19ekMoJ:www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/6665907.htm%3Ftemplate%3DcontentModules/printstory.jsp+%22doubt+falls+on+experts+testimony%22&hl=en
This is an outrage. I once was retarded, now I am 'Mentally Challenged'
How can this lapse in political correctness by the AP not be grounds for a re-trial...
"There is a disease running rampant on death row in Georgia - it's called mental retardation," said Ocmulgee Circuit District Attorney Fred Bright, who is scheduled to testify in an appeals hearing this month for a condemned cop killer.
"It's very contagious, and everybody's catching it," Bright said.
This case is just haunting. I remember the broadcast of the young airman's face, terrified and anguished, as he was getting his money from the ATM. The camera captured his last moments with those grinning, jibbering monsters in the car with him.
This surveillance photo from an ATM shows Eric Nesbitt seated between two men in his pickup truck after being kidnapped outside a convenience store and forced to withdraw money Aug.1996 in Va. Police say the man on the left is Daryl Atkins, then 18.
I live in the Hampton Roads area. I too recall seeing the video tape. Execute this scumbag Atkins, the sooner the better.
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