I know I could help people. Toward the end of the interview, Mr. Cruz put his head in his hands and wept. She said the jury had heard the evidence about his mental retardation and had reached its verdict, and that she supported the jury's judgment. Mr. Pokorak said that the jury had not been properly instructed to consider evidence of mental retardation, as required by Supreme Court rulings. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled recently that while the instruction had not been given, it was not a fatal constitutional error.
Most people charged with capital murder are poor, and so are represented by appointed lawyers.
Many of these lawyers are inexperienced, even incompetent, and often fail during the mitigation phase of the trial to present the evidence of mental retardation that could persuade the jury to spare their client's life. In Arizona, Ramon Martinez-Villareal is on death row after being convicted of murdering two people. He has an I.Q. of 50 and also suffers from brain damage, schizophrenia and dementia, according to evidence presented by his lawyers in various appeals. During the trial, Mr. Martinez-Villareal's lawyer did not mention his client's mental retardation. Mr. Martinez-Villareal, meanwhile, was not able to tell the difference between the spectators and the jury, his trial lawyer testified at a later hearing.