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| New Guidelines Spare Mentally Retarded |
| By The Pittsburgh Tribune |
| Published: 01/02/2006 |
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has established standards by which murder defendants can prove they are mentally retarded and avoid the death penalty, but the high court also urged the General Assembly to consider taking action of its own. Acting more than three years after the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions of people who are mentally retarded, the state Supreme Court said last week that it would not rely on a "cutoff IQ score," but instead adopted a system that takes into account both "limited intellectual functioning" and "deficiencies in adaptive skills." Ruling in the case of Joseph Daniel "Joey" Miller, convicted in March 1993 of murdering two women in Dauphin County, the high court voted unanimously to send the case back to county court for hearings to establish whether Miller, 41, meets the new standard. In a concurring opinion, Justice J. Michael Eakin said the Legislature should act "without further delay" to pass a law that would comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia. At the time, Pennsylvania was one of 20 states that did not explicitly ban the execution of the mentally retarded. The decision could impact at least one local convict's appeal of his death sentence. A lawyer for triple-killer Ronald Taylor, 45, formerly of Wilkinsburg, said last week he might use his client's retardation as a reason to get him off death row. Taylor was convicted in 2001 of killing three people during a racially motivated shooting spree in Wilkinsburg. His previous attorney, John Elash, did not argue during the trial that Taylor was retarded. He did use it as one basis for an appeal to the state Supreme Court, which was rejected in June. Elash said at the time that though Taylor's IQ is between 70 and 72, the defense team decided to use an insanity defense instead. Farrell, who said he had not seen this week's ruling from the state Supreme Court and has not fully reviewed Taylor's court files, said he plans to file a new appeal with Common Pleas Judge Lawrence J. O'Toole, who presided over the trial. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said he will not object to the filing of the appeal. |
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