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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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.
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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.