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| Texas Jury Rejects Claims Convict is Retarded, Sentences Him to Death |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/15/2002 |
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A jury last week sentenced to death a convicted rapist and murderer whose attorneys had argued should be spared because he is mentally retarded. Johnny Paul Penry twice was given death sentences but they were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 and June 2001. Because the high court ruled last month that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, jurors were told July 3 that they would have to first determine that Penry was not mentally retarded before sentencing him to death by injection. Penry's lawyers say their client has the mind of a 7-year-old. Prosecutors argued he was not mentally retarded and should die for killing Pamela Carpenter in October 1979 at her home in Livingston. Carpenter was raped and stabbed in the chest with scissors, but remained alive long enough to describe her killer. 'I feel reasonably confident this is over with,' prosecutor Joe Price said recently. Penry, 46, has spent half his life in prison, primarily on death row. Carpenter's niece, Ellen May, said the family expects 'a long road' of appeals of the third death sentence, but they were relieved. Penry's attorney, John Wright, said he planned to appeal. |
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