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| Jury Decision Sought in N.C. on Mental Capacity |
| By Charlotte Observer |
| Published: 11/26/2002 |
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As many as 51 of North Carolina's 208 death row inmates could get a new chance to avoid being put to death, thanks to a lawsuit that challenges the way courts determine their mental capacity. If the class-action suit succeeds, those inmates would be able to ask juries to decide whether they are mentally retarded and therefore exempt from the death penalty. The state has two weeks to respond to the suit. Partly with the intent of avoiding lawsuits, state legislators crafted a law last year that included current death row inmates in a ban on executing the mentally retarded. New defendants can have their mental status determined first by judges; if a judge rules the defendant is not retarded, defense attorneys still can take the issue to a jury. But the new law requires judges, not juries, to determine whether those already convicted are retarded. Zephyr Teachout, one of the attorneys filing the class-action suit, says that's not fair. 'We have a long history of looking to the people, through a jury, for answering difficult questions, and this is one of the hardest ones,' Teachout said. 'You can find wise judges, but for the hardest decisions we look for the special collected wisdom (of a jury).' So Teachout and two other N.C. lawyers sued the state last month, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that any decision that could increase a defendant's sentence needs to be made by a jury. At its root, the debate is philosophical: One side argues that the hardest decisions should emerge from a jury's collective wisdom. The other says technical legal questions need technical legal minds to answer them. But for Diana Nicholson, the question isn't so abstract: The answer could determine whether her brother lives or dies. 'I think it's better for a jury (to decide), because it seems like, to me, a judge can just quickly say he's not (retarded),' said Nicholson, whose brother, Abner, is one of the four death row inmates listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. 'It's better for more than one to decide.' Three Durham attorneys filed the suit Oct. 3 in Wake County Superior Court. They represent four death row inmates: Kenneth Neal, sentenced in Rockingham County for the 1995 murder of his common-law wife; Abner Nicholson, sentenced in Wilson County for the 1997 murders of his wife and a local police chief; Clinton Smith, sentenced in Halifax County for the 1996 murder of his 6-year-old daughter; and Johnnie Spruill, sentenced in Northampton County for the 1984 murder of his ex-girlfriend. Citing the Supreme Court ruling, the suit argues that a jury needs to make this potentially life-or-death call. The lawsuit and its supporters also argue that it is unfair to treat people already on death row differently from future defendants. A separate lawsuit, filed in September on behalf of death row inmate Ernest Paul McCarver, adds another contention: that the state's standards for determining whether someone is retarded are too rigid. |
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