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| Longest-serving death row inmate declared retarded |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/02/2004 |
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A judge ruled July 23 that Texas' longest-serving death row inmate is retarded, a decision that could spare Walter Bell's life and make him eligible for parole if upheld by an appeals court, officials said. At a hearing in May, Bell's attorneys asked that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison under a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning the execution of retarded people. Prosecutors argued the ruling didn't apply to Bell. State District Judge Charles Carver's opinion said Bell, 50, fits the Texas guidelines for mental retardation. Bell, who arrived on death row 29 years ago, was condemned in the slayings of Ferd and Irene Chisum at their Port Arthur home in 1974. Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness said he wasn't surprised by the ruling and didn't have a problem with it. He said Carver had no alternative but to rule the way he did based on the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court when in 2002 it ruled it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. Maness said he doesn't think the Supreme Court's decision allows judges and juries to give enough weight to the actual crime itself and how a defendant planned and performed a crime and hid from authorities after it was done, as was the case with Bell. But Bell's attorney, William Christian, disagreed. "Walter Bell is exactly the kind of person the Supreme Court had in mind when they were writing the Atkins decision. It reduces his culpability with the ultimate penalty, the death penalty," he said. |
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