Mixed reaction in Texas to Supreme Court decision
Posted on 06/20/2002 3:01:56 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Mixed reaction in Texas to Supreme Court decision
06/20/2002
AUSTIN - Supporters of a ban on executing the mentally retarded in Texas were jubilant Thursday after a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such executions are unconstitutionally cruel.
Opponents, meanwhile, initially reacted with silence, saying they needed more time to review the high court decision.
"I'm elated," said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who last year filed a bill to ban the execution of the mentally retarded in Texas that was vetoed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
Ellis told The Associated Press that he planned to file the exact same piece of legislation in January and believed it would again pass both chambers in light of Thursday's high court ruling.
"Just as we don't execute children in this country or in this state, we ought not execute someone who has the mind of a child," Ellis said.
Neither Perry or state Attorney General John Cornyn immediately commented.
"This is great news. It's a milestone in narrowing the use of capital punishment in this country," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. "It will have a great impact on how we administer the death penalty in Texas."
Texas is one of 20 states that allowed the execution of the retarded before the high court ruling.
The ruling means that in the future, people arrested for a killing will not face a potential death sentence if they can show they are retarded, generally defined as having an IQ of 70 or lower.
The court left it to states to develop their own systems to ensure that mentally retarded people are not executed.
Perry vetoed a bill last year that would have allowed a jury to determine during a trial's punishment phase whether a defendant was mentally retarded. If so, the sentence would have been life in prison.
Under that bill, if the jury found a person was not mentally retarded, a defense attorney could petition the judge to consider the issue. Two experts would be assigned to make a determination. If the evidence showed the person to be mentally retarded, the judge would be required to issue a life sentence.
Perry said the bill took too much power away from the jury and gave it to the judge.
After his veto last June, Perry said he believed Texas statute would stand even if the Supreme Court banned the execution of the mentally retarded.
"We do not allow for the execution of the mentally retarded today," Perry said at the time.
That was an argument Ellis said he expected will linger.
"There are some who will say we don't executive the mentally retarded now. Well, my question would be, 'why would you be opposed to a ban on it then?'," Ellis said. "We need to get this issue behind us and not try to deny reality."
Current Texas law says a jury must decide if a defendant is competent to stand trial, including whether the defendant can aid in his own defense, and whether a defendant was insane, unable to distinguish right from wrong, when the crime was committed.
Jurors also can consider retardation as a mitigating circumstance during sentencing.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately know many inmates on death row would be affected and was waiting further direction from the courts, said spokesman Larry Todd.
"No one will be automatically commuted to life," Todd said Thursday.
Harrington estimated 68 inmates, or 15 percent of the 455 people on death row, could be considered mentally retarded under the Supreme Court ruling.
In April, a third Texas jury determined convicted killer John Paul Penry was mentally competent to stand trial despite an IQ in the 50s.
Penry, who tests show has the intellectual ability of a 6- or 7-year-old, has spent nearly half his life locked up for killing Pamela Moseley Carpenter.
The U.S. Supreme Court had blocked three recent scheduled Texas executions of convicts who claimed to be mentally retarded.
One of the nation's busiest death penalty states, Texas has executed 16 people this year.
Before the Supreme Court Ruling, the Death Penalty Information Center claimed Texas has executed six mentally retarded inmates since 1982, a number disputed by death penalty proponents.
Messages left Thursday with the Houston-based victims' rights group Justice for All were not immediately returned.
Here's some more info about Atkins
Atkins had 20 previous felonies on his record at the time of the killing, the state argued. Atkins gave a detailed confession to police when he was arrested, describing how he and an accomplice kidnapped the victim, forced him to withdraw cash from a bank teller machine and then drove him to a deserted field and shot him eight times.
It is making a reference to the legal sense of the word, not the physical sense.
"Just as we don't execute children in this country or in this state, we ought not execute someone who has the mind of a child," Ellis said.And I would bet that your are probably right on the money there, FRiend!
I'm pretty sure Ellis is a huge advocate for executing children. He would just rather defend some murdering rapist than innocent human life.
However, having said all that, I can attest to one indisputable fact. He knew the difference between right and wrong and wouldn't have hurt a fly. He was very forgiving even when in my ignorance of youth I abused him.
If my brother could know what was right and what was wrong, the difference between good and evil, then I think anyone should be able to do so.
It is my firm belief that being good or evil has nothing to do with intelligence but is a more subtle matter.
If you do wrong and you comprehend that you have done wrong, you should be punished. And, if you kill, society should have no use for you.
Even my brother would have understood that.
The man was 17 1/2 when he committed the murder/carjacking/attempted murder crime (he killed the driver, shot but did not kill the passenger, and stole the car). How much "smarter" was this thug going to get in 6 months? We were told how he was elected class president, how he was a star athlete.
This is just another trick in the bag for lawyers to keep the guilty from getting their due (not a saving by grace, but a loophole).
There have been other unusual cases like a man who was fine when he committed the murders but sustained some kind of head injury later (possibly a self-inflicted gunshot from an attempted suicide). Some claimed that it wasn't right to kill him since he had no idea what was happening to him or why.
I heard that this ruling is bad also because it purposely left the determination of mental ability/retardation to each state meaning that they won't have a common definition.
The law requires that they have a ~70 or below IQ and a history of mental retardation prior to age 18, difficulty with everyday tasks (like tying your shoes, wiping ass, etc) and required supervision. These nutballs on death row are sometimes idiots, but not retarded. Perhaps the definition of 'retarded' will be downgraded to include them, though.
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