Posted on 02/19/2019 8:12:53 AM PST by GIdget2004
The Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a death sentence for a Texas man who argued he could not be put to death because he is intellectually disabled.
The justices ruled 6-3, which included Chief Justice John Roberts, for Bobby James Moore.
The case centers on Moore's conviction of capital murder for fatally shooting a store clerk during a 1980 robbery.
Moore's lawyers have argued his death sentence violates the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment because he is intellectually disabled. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has twice ruled that Moore does not have an intellectual disability and is eligible for the death penalty.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court vacated the appeals court's first ruling and told the court to reassess Moore's intellectual disability under more contemporary standards.
The high court tossed out the lower court's second opinion on Tuesday.
"We conclude that the appeals courts opinion, when taken as a whole and when read in the light both of our prior opinion and the trial court record, rests upon analysis too much of which too closely resembles what we previously found improper," the majority said in an unsigned opinion.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I think it's a legitimate question why he would be competent to stand trial, but not competent to be executed. I'm not interested enough in the issue to read the opinion, though. That said, it's not a very high intellectual bar to say okay if your lawyers ask if they can request that the state not kill you. Even a blanket statement such as, "I don't want to die," totally to be expected from even the most feeble-minded among us, would likely constitute sufficient consent.
It’s time to stop calling Roberts one of the conservatives on the court. He has sold his soul to the left.
If you have a bad dog, you put him to sleep. You do not try to assess his intellectual capabilities. Did he take into account his intellect when he killed a store clerk during a robbery? No, he just killed him. He should be treated with the same compassion he meted out.
Still a comfortable liberal majority on the Supreme Court.
Bad call. If he’s intellectually capable of killing to steal what he wants, he’s intellectually functional enough to sit in an electric chair.
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