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| Supreme Court allows four death row inmates to pursue mental retardation appeals |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/24/2004 |
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The Mississippi Supreme Court will allow four death row inmates to seek new trials on the issue of mental retardation. Among the inmates is Howard M. Neal, one of the longest serving residents of death row at the Parchman prison. Neal has been on death row for 23 years. Neal, Anthony Carr, Clyde Wendell Smith and Ricky Chase individually sought permission from the court to seek post-conviction appeals in trial courts. Inmates use post-conviction petitions to try to convince a judge that new evidence has surfaced in their case that warrants a new trial. The justices last Thursday rejected all issues raised by the four except for claims of mental retardation. Prosecutors had opposed the mental retardation claims, saying the four did not prove their cases. In 2002, a ban on the execution of mentally retarded defendants was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a case out of Virginia, the nation's high court said execution of the mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Since that decision, dozens of Mississippi death row inmates have sought mental retardation hearings. Although retardation is generally defined as having an IQ of 70 or lower, the U.S. Supreme Court left it to states to develop their own systems to ensure that mentally retarded people are not executed. Mississippi justices have ruled trial judges will follow the guidelines in the Virginia decision, especially the American Psychiatric Association's definition that an intelligence quotient score of 70 is the limit of retardation. The local trial court will conduct a hearing to decide if the inmate is retarded or not, the court said. In all four cases, the justices said they "cannot constitutionally deny" the inmates the opportunity to present the issue of their possible mental retardation to the trial court. |
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