Despite U.S. Supreme Court ban, Texas continued to send mentally retarded criminals to death row

Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ban, Texas has continued to send mentally retarded criminals to death row. Will a Mexican immigrant's case correct this injustice?

Cracked, by Renee Feltz, The Texas Observer

"In 2002, six years after Daniel Plata landed on Death Row, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case called Atkins v. Virginia that “executions of mentally retarded criminals are cruel and unusual.” Even though mentally disabled people can understand the difference between right and wrong, the court reasoned that they are less able to control impulsive behavior or learn from mistakes. The court supported its decision by pointing to bans on executing the mentally retarded in 17 states and in federal cases as “evolving standards of decency.”

"Like most of the states that had already passed bans, the justices used a clinical definition to establish the level of mental retardation that would exempt Daryl Atkins, the Virginia defendant, from death: below-average intellectual abilities defined by an IQ score of 70 or below and “deficits in adaptive behavior” such as practical and social skills. Both of these limitations, the court ruled, had to be present before the age of 18.

"But the court left it up to the states to choose their own definitions of mental retardation. Since 2002, eight more states have passed laws that use the clinical definition cited in Atkins. Texas is not one of them. With bipartisan support, the Texas Legislature passed a law in 2001 mandating a life sentence for mentally retarded people convicted of capital crimes. But Gov. Rick Perry vetoed the measure, agreeing with critics that it was a “backdoor attempt to ban the death penalty.”

"Since 2002, Texas has removed just 13 men from Death Row after they were found to have the mental and emotional development of 12-year-olds. In contrast to a 40 percent success rate for Atkins appeals nationally, just 28 percent have been successful in Texas. “I suppose you could imagine that Texas Death Row inmates are smarter than everyone else,” says Johnson, “but I’d be surprised.”

Click here to read this feature in full.