A Supreme Court decision in Atkins v. Virginia declared it unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded person. So this guy couldn't have been executed after that decision. But it does show that Virginia has a history of doing this. I think the argument was that people with mental retardation can still premeditatedly murder someone, and still know that it's wrong, so they should still be executed like anyone else.
Scalia's dissent in this case was so insane and snarky that it inspired this icon. It included arguments like "everyone knows that retarded people are typically happy, gentle folks. Therefore, their being retarded is not what caused or predisposed them to kill someone. So those that commit crimes are just as culpable as anyone else."
Yeah, this was before that decision (Washington was pardoned in 2000, Atkins v. Virginia was 2002). He was NINE DAYS from execution when he was pardoned based upon DNA evidence. Jeez! The Innocence Project is such a great use of science. :)
Sometime around 1998 there was a mass murder at a Wendy's near my parents. Apparently many of the actual killings were carried out by an employee with mental retardation (or whatever the PC term is). The partner got the death penalty - I believe it was the first carried out in NY since it'd been reinstated. Not sure what sentence the man with retardation got.
As for "happy, gentle folks," that certainly is the common opinion. Do you know if any systematic studies have been done to help disprove that?
Yeah, the Innocence Project is amazing. It's also extremely scary how many people have been found to be innocent that way...
I'm not sure if any systematic studies have been done to disprove the 'happy, gentle' stereotype. I think it's clear though that some people with retardation are, for some reason or another, more irritable and prone to violence than others, and those ones, due to their retardation, have fewer resources to counteract that disposition. Whether other people with retardation, even the vast majority, have gentle predispositions is totally irrelevant.
in the article about the Wendy's I was struck by a tangential but interesting fact - the prosecuter was personally opposed to the death penalty but sought it for the non-retarded defendant anyway. How could anyone DO that?? I'm confused.
Prosecutors have a lot of leeway in terms of which crimes they want to prosecute and which sentences they want to pursue. A prosecutor, I'm pretty sure, doesn't have to prosecute someone who they actually think is innocent, and doesn't have to ask for a sentence that they don't think the person deserves (unless the sentence is statutorily mandated, which the death penalty never is)
Defense lawyers have to defend the people they're assigned to, but usually they actually value that service, even though they might not like the idea of people who have committed crimes getting out of punishments they might deserve.
My understanding is that the term "mental retardation" is defined solely by ones' IQ. (This seemed to be the case when we were suing the state of Arizona to obtain state-subsidized housing for my developmentally disabled brother.) And a sub-normal IQ can happen several different ways - injury to various parts of the brain or just failure of the brain to fully develop. My guess is that an abnormal disposition (whether it be violent or sunny) depends on which part of the brain is causing the mental affliction. We might be able to correlate abnormal moods with specific areas of the brain, which would certainly be interesting.
Scalia's a bitch. The one-dimensional view of people with mental illness as "happy, gentle folks" is just as offensive as the oft-heard claims they are all violent, raving schizophrenics. I don't disagree with the claim that someone with mental retardation could premeditatedly murder someone... but is it with the same understanding of what that really means? I certainly doubt it.
Well, to be fair, this is people with retardation specifically. I'm sure that Scalia thinks that people with mental illness are violent, raving schizophrenics. He's got a one-dimensional view of all different kinds of populations!
There was actually a SEPARATE Supreme Court decision against executing people who are seriously mentally ill. I forget the case caption but it involved the state of Florida (that's also an interesting decision to read as the justice writing the majority opinion was totally horrified that anyone wanted to execute an insane person at all). I'm sure Scalia dissented in that one as well ;).
Debateable. I mean, retardation is in the DSM but on a totally different axis. Most people when referring to mental illness implicitly mean disorders that are on Axis I of the DSM (major mental disorders, developmental disorders and learning disabilities), whereas mental retardation is on Axis II (underlying pervasive/personality conditions).
Also they are considered different legally. Legal insanity can be caused by severe retardation, but basically means that the person has insufficient grip on reality to know what they're doing or what's being done to them. Someone who's innocent by reason of insanity is someone who didn't or couldn't know that they were committing a crime or that what they were doing was wrong. Someone who's too insane to be executed is someone who is so delusional that they don't know that they're going to be killed, why they're going to be killed, or what death means. The only reason someone that crazy ever got on death row in the first place, apparently, was because they developed that level of psychosis after being sentenced.
The mild mental retardation suffered by Atkins didn't mean he couln't understand what it meant to kill a person, or to be killed, it just meant that he was not able to reason about those things very well and therefore was less culpable than he would be if he had average mental abilities.
Very interesting. Particularly the legal definitions of insanity and what they mean in the context of a crime. Thanks for the info! I'll have to try and find that Florida case you mentioned; that one sounded really interesting as well.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 10:28 pm (UTC)A Supreme Court decision in Atkins v. Virginia declared it unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded person. So this guy couldn't have been executed after that decision. But it does show that Virginia has a history of doing this. I think the argument was that people with mental retardation can still premeditatedly murder someone, and still know that it's wrong, so they should still be executed like anyone else.
Scalia's dissent in this case was so insane and snarky that it inspired this icon. It included arguments like "everyone knows that retarded people are typically happy, gentle folks. Therefore, their being retarded is not what caused or predisposed them to kill someone. So those that commit crimes are just as culpable as anyone else."
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 06:45 am (UTC)Sometime around 1998 there was a mass murder at a Wendy's near my parents. Apparently many of the actual killings were carried out by an employee with mental retardation (or whatever the PC term is). The partner got the death penalty - I believe it was the first carried out in NY since it'd been reinstated. Not sure what sentence the man with retardation got.
As for "happy, gentle folks," that certainly is the common opinion. Do you know if any systematic studies have been done to help disprove that?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 07:17 am (UTC)I'm not sure if any systematic studies have been done to disprove the 'happy, gentle' stereotype. I think it's clear though that some people with retardation are, for some reason or another, more irritable and prone to violence than others, and those ones, due to their retardation, have fewer resources to counteract that disposition. Whether other people with retardation, even the vast majority, have gentle predispositions is totally irrelevant.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:32 pm (UTC)Defense lawyers have to defend the people they're assigned to, but usually they actually value that service, even though they might not like the idea of people who have committed crimes getting out of punishments they might deserve.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:17 pm (UTC)There was actually a SEPARATE Supreme Court decision against executing people who are seriously mentally ill. I forget the case caption but it involved the state of Florida (that's also an interesting decision to read as the justice writing the majority opinion was totally horrified that anyone wanted to execute an insane person at all). I'm sure Scalia dissented in that one as well ;).
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:27 pm (UTC)Also they are considered different legally. Legal insanity can be caused by severe retardation, but basically means that the person has insufficient grip on reality to know what they're doing or what's being done to them. Someone who's innocent by reason of insanity is someone who didn't or couldn't know that they were committing a crime or that what they were doing was wrong. Someone who's too insane to be executed is someone who is so delusional that they don't know that they're going to be killed, why they're going to be killed, or what death means. The only reason someone that crazy ever got on death row in the first place, apparently, was because they developed that level of psychosis after being sentenced.
The mild mental retardation suffered by Atkins didn't mean he couln't understand what it meant to kill a person, or to be killed, it just meant that he was not able to reason about those things very well and therefore was less culpable than he would be if he had average mental abilities.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 03:21 pm (UTC)It is very interesting. I took a course on mental health law at UPenn School of Law and it was one of the best courses I'd ever taken.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 02:28 pm (UTC)