In the last four weeks, the court has also stayed the executions of two other mentally retarded offenders who are challenging the constitutionality of their death sentences. The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation.
Polls show most supporters of the death penalty agree.
It is time for legislators to outlaw this senseless cruelty. The United States appears to be the only democracy whose laws expressly permit the execution of persons with this severe mental disability. At least thirty-five mentally retarded people have been executed in the United States since 1976. An estimated two to three hundred currently await execution on death row. Legislation to prohibit the death penalty for the mentally retarded is currently under consideration in a number of states, including Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas.