No Justice For A Retarded Black Man

Why is it that five years after the Supreme Court has
ruled in his case that the death penalty was unconsti-
tutional that this man still sits on Virginia's death row?
Will they try to execute on the Q.T.? Check out his story
below and then rain in on the situation.


Five years after the Supreme Court declared in Atkins vs. Virginia that the death penalty was unconstitutional for those who are mentally retarded, Daryl Atkins still sits on death row.In August, lawyers for the man who won the landmark ruling will try again to convince a jury here that he is indeed mentally retarded and therefore deserves a life term in prison, not execution. Three times before, the county prosecutor has persuaded juries here to condemn Atkins to die, and she expects to win a fourth time as well.

"Daryl was a slow reader. He was lazy, and he came to school stoned. But until he committed this murder, no one thought he was mentally retarded," said Eileen M. Addison, the prosecutor. His case is not unique. Though the high court found that there was a "national consensus" against executing the mentally retarded, it left it to the states to decide which murderers would qualify for that exemption. Determined prosecutors have had little trouble convincing juries that a convicted killer with a low IQ is not necessarily retarded.

The definition of retardation is imprecise; test results can vary, giving prosecutors an opportunity to produce additional scores and other evidence to make the case that an inmate is actually smart enough to die. The result is that the Supreme Court's ruling has had less effect than many had foreseen."There has been more resistance than I expected," said University of New Mexico law professor James Ellis, an expert on mental retardation who represented Atkins before the Supreme Court.

A few states moved off of death row several inmates who had IQ scores in the 60s or low 70s, he said. But states where capital punishment has strong support, including Virginia and Texas, have let juries decide. And "it's an uphill fight with the jury" to establish mental retardation, Ellis said. In 2002, he told the high court there were no reliable numbers on how many of the nation's more than 3,000 death row inmates were mentally retarded. Some experts predicted several dozen inmates would qualify for the exemption. Human Rights Watch said the number could be as high as 300.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net