Death row convict granted hearing of mental retardation

AUSTIN - A Dallas man on death row for 13 years for killing a security guard was granted a new hearing by a Texas appeals court Wednesday to address claims that he is mentally retarded.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that people with mental retardation cannot be executed because it violates the constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Gayland Bradford, 34, was convicted in the shooting death of Brian Edward Williams, 29, during a robbery at a south Dallas convenience store in 1988.

At Bradford's initial trial, Dr. Richard L Fulbright testified for the defense that Bradford's IQ was 75, showing "borderline intellectual functioning" that was "just above mental retardation," according to court documents.

In an affidavit attached to Bradford's application to the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, Fulbright said Bradford should be evaluated specifically for mental retardation, something he was not asked to do by Bradford's original attorneys.

Fulbright pointed to Bradford's premature birth and exposure to lead contamination from a West Dallas lead smelting plant near where Bradford grew up as factors that may have led to cognitive development problems.

Bradford's attorneys also noted in their application for a writ of habeas corpus that Bradford's IQ had been tested by the Texas Department of Corrections as 68 when he was a 17-year-old first offender.

IQs between 70 and 75 or lower can be indicative of mental retardation. Evidence of mental retardation onsetting before the age of 18 also is often required as proof of mental retardation.

"You see what a crazy task we have," said Bradford's current attorney, Mick Mickelsen of Dallas. "We have to go back and try to investigate what was his intellectual capacity as a child in order to determine whether he's mentally retarded."

So what if he's retarded? He was aware enough to get a gun, pull the trigger 4 times and run away... obviously not THAT retarded. Fry him anyway.

Yep. The real issue is knowing right from wrong, imho . . .

Knowing Right from Wrong
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2001-03-08/feature.html/1/index.html

Excerpt from this John Paul Penry article:

While Penry made sure no one was coming, Carpenter grabbed the pair of orange-handled scissors she had been using to make Halloween decorations and stabbed them into Penry's back. Penry then knocked the scissors out of her hand and pushed her to the floor. While she was on her way down, Penry whacked Carpenter's head on the stove. As she lay on the kitchen floor, Penry then stomped her with his work boots.

"We verified that later, because she had a perfect heel print on her side where he'd stomped her while she was on her stomach. It ruptured her kidney, and that's what actually killed her."

But Carpenter wasn't dead yet, nor was Penry through. After stomping her, he got down on the floor and raped her.

"Then he got up and went across the room and picked up those damn scissors," says Price. "Came back, sat down on her stomach and said, 'I'm sorry, but I've got to do this.' Said something about he couldn't have her squealing on him. And then he buried the scissors in her chest." That act, says Price, was a clear indication that Penry knew he had done something wrong and that he was in big trouble.

Even then, the notoriously strong-willed Carpenter refused to die.

"He thought that would kill her instantly," says Price, "but she reached up and pulled the goddamn scissors out. When she did that, it scared him and he jumped up and ran out of the house."

Carpenter managed to pull herself across the room to the telephone. First she called a friend, and then an ambulance. At the hospital, emergency room doctors were aware of only the stab wound. They mended the hole in Carpenter's chest and thought they had her stabilized. But when a catheter was inserted, her damaged kidney began hemorrhaging. Pam Carpenter immediately went into shock and died.

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