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| Supreme Court Reviews Executing Mentally Retarded |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 09/28/2001 |
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The Supreme Court has reaffirmed its intention to decide if mentally retarded killers should be spared the death penalty, choosing a new case to review. As state leaders debate the morality of the practice, the court will consider early next year if it is constitutional. The court on Tuesday substituted a moot North Carolina inmate's case with one from Virginia. The court's first choice had been the appeal of Ernest McCarver, convicted of killing a cafeteria worker. North Carolina enacted a ban on such executions last month. 'Obviously they do want to take a stand on this issue, one way or the other,' said Paula Bernstein, spokeswoman for the Death Penalty Information Center. The court will review the case of Daryl Atkins, who was 18 when he was accused of murdering an airman to get money for beer. Justices will revisit the question of whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute a person with mental retardation. Atkins has an IQ of 59, the court was told. People who test 70 or below are generally considered mentally retarded. A psychologist who testified for the state said that Atkins used sophisticated words and was able to identify the last two presidents as well as Virginia's governor. The victim in the Atkins case, 21-year-old Eric Nesbitt, was kidnapped in 1996 outside a convenience store and forced to withdraw money from an automatic teller machine. Atkins and an accomplice were accused of taking Nesbitt to a deserted field and shooting him eight times. Nesbitt was stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va. Pro-death penalty groups said they would oppose Atkins' case. 'Our participation in this case will be to help assure that cold-blooded murderers are not able to avoid the punishment they have earned with an unsupported claim that they suffer a mental deficiency,' said Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. The cases are McCarver v. North Carolina, 00-8727, and Atkins v. Virginia, 00-8452. |
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