Penry V. Lynaugh Decision
On June 20, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing people with mental retardation violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, overruling its Penry v. Lynaugh decision in 1989.
People with mental retardation are at a higher risk of wrongful convictions and death sentences. They may be more likely to falsely confess to a crime because they want to please the authorities that are investigating the crime. They are less able than others to work with their lawyers to help to prepare their defense. Because of the stigma attached to mental retardation, people with this disability often become adept at hiding it, even from their lawyer, not understanding the importance of this information …show more content…
But, to keep "cheating" at a minimum, many states require the "evidence" of whether the person has mental retardation to have been documented any time before he or she was 18 or 21. Does it make sense to base a life or death decision on, for example, a test done 25 years ago by an elementary school teacher who may have "fudged" a student¹s test score to show others how good a teacher she was?
Another problem is that even if these tests were objective, they could not determine whether the person was innocent or competent. My own experience has shown me that IQ scores are only good at telling how well a person does on IQ tests. Not much more, not much less.
I've known people that were labeled as being in the "severe level of mental disability" who were much more skilled at understanding human behavior than the PhDs administering the tests. I've also known so-called "geniuses" with IQ scores above 140 who did not understand the difference between right and wrong or the consequences of their actions. I don¹t know anybody who understands the criminal justice
People with mental retardation are at a higher risk of wrongful convictions and death sentences. They may be more likely to falsely confess to a crime because they want to please the authorities that are investigating the crime. They are less able than others to work with their lawyers to help to prepare their defense. Because of the stigma attached to mental retardation, people with this disability often become adept at hiding it, even from their lawyer, not understanding the importance of this information …show more content…
But, to keep "cheating" at a minimum, many states require the "evidence" of whether the person has mental retardation to have been documented any time before he or she was 18 or 21. Does it make sense to base a life or death decision on, for example, a test done 25 years ago by an elementary school teacher who may have "fudged" a student¹s test score to show others how good a teacher she was?
Another problem is that even if these tests were objective, they could not determine whether the person was innocent or competent. My own experience has shown me that IQ scores are only good at telling how well a person does on IQ tests. Not much more, not much less.
I've known people that were labeled as being in the "severe level of mental disability" who were much more skilled at understanding human behavior than the PhDs administering the tests. I've also known so-called "geniuses" with IQ scores above 140 who did not understand the difference between right and wrong or the consequences of their actions. I don¹t know anybody who understands the criminal justice