Court Bans Execution of Mentally Retarded

June 20 -- Reversing previous rulings, the Supreme Court ruled today that executing the mentally retarded constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unconstitutional.

The court's 6-3 ruling applies to mentally retarded killers and does not address the constitutionality of capital punishment in general.

The justices cited a shift in public attitude toward the practice of executing mentally retarded killers since the court ruled on the issue more than a decade ago.

In a 1989 opinion, the high court ruled it was not unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded under the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments." The justices said there was no national consensus against the practice at the time — only two states prohibited such executions.

Since then, though, another 16 states and the federal government have passed laws barring the execution of the mentally retarded, generally defined as having an IQ of 70 orlower.

"It is not so much the number of these states that issignificant, but the consistency of the direction of the change,"Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

Rehnquist: Forget the Polls

Writing for the dissenters, Chief JusticeWilliam Rehnquist said the majority relied too much on public opinion polls and the views of national and international death penalty foes.

"Believing this view to be seriously mistaken, I dissent,"Rehnquist wrote, omitting the customary word"respectfully" before "dissent." Justices Antonin Scaliaand Clarence Thomas joined Rehnquist in the dissent.

In the wake of the court's ruling in Atkins vs. Virginia, condemned mentally retarded inmates in the 20 states that have allowed their executions will likely argue that their sentences should be changed to life in prison.

Some critics of the decision said it would open the floodgates to false claims of mental retardation.

In its ruling, the court sided with a Virginia inmate, Daryl RenardAtkins, who was convicted of shooting an Air Force enlisted man forbeer money in 1996. Atkins' lawyers claimed he had an IQ of 59, below the lowest 1 percentile of the population for intelligence, and hasnever lived on his own or held a job.