How can Texas get away with defying the Supreme Court ban? Here's what State Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) says:
"Unfortunately, Texas continues to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court's categorical ban on the execution of offenders with mental retardation by developing its own set of determining factors for who will be exempt from execution."
The problem is that when the Supreme Court banned executing the mentally retarded, they did not define exactly what mental retardation was, leaving it up to the states to do that. I'm sure they expected the states to follow generally accepted definitions of mental retardation. But Texas doesn't play by the same rules as other states do. Texas came up with a definition that will allow them to execute anyone they wish, regardless of the intellectual limits that person might have.
In Texas, a person must have below-average intellectual function, must lack adaptive behavior skills, and must show evidence of both before the age of 18. The inmate scheduled for execution on Tuesday has an IQ of 61 and had that IQ before the age of 18 -- meeting the first and third qualifications. It is the second qualification that gives the state its "out". Anyone not so mentally deficient as to require institutionalization would likely fail that test. The term "adaptive behavior skills" is such a loosely defined term, that basically anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time can be executed.
Texas may not be violating the letter of the Supreme Court decision (although even that is debatable), but it most certainly is violating the spirit and intent of the decision. The inmate scheduled to be executed meets any reasonable definition of mental retardation -- and Texas is going to execute him anyway. All of us Texans should be ashamed of our state's impending action.
I'm composing a post on it now, but short version a teenager made a mistake and left an infant in a car where it died from the heat. The charge was manslaughter, but judge decided she was not a criminal but was a young woman who had made a mistake. He sentenced her to two years probation, and ordered that she creat a public memorial to the baby.
ReplyDeleteThe parents approved the sentence. The wanted to meet with the girl to tell her that they "bore no grudge." The piece ended with her the parents showing the quilt she had spent three months making as a memorial to the baby.
That is the kind of nation we should be. A mistake, even a terrible mistake, should not turn a person into a criminal and a loss, no matter how bad a loss, should not fill lives with hatred.
Our system of justice seldom works this well.
One problem we have, especially here in Texas, is that far fewer people are interested in justice and far more people are interested in revenge.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I'll incorporate that into what I have to say.
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