Atkins v. Virginia: execution of mentally retarded defendants revisited

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted cruel and unusual punishment to include those that are excessive and not graduated and proportioned to the offense and those that do not consider the defendant’s degree of criminal culpability. In the case of Penry v. Lynaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed whether execution of persons with mental retardation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In 1979, Johnny Paul Penry was arrested for the rape, stabbing, and murder of Pamela Mosely Carpenter. Penry was found competent to stand trial despite testimony from a psychologist that he was mildly to moderately retarded and had the mental age of a six and a half-year-old. Psychological testing indicated that Penry’s IQ ranged between 50 and 63. During the guilt phase of the trial, the Texas jury rejected Penry’s insanity defense and subsequently sentenced him to death. Penry filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court claiming, among other things, that his death sentence violated the Eighth Amendment because executing a person with mental retardation is cruel and unusual punishment. After Penry’s petition was denied by the district court and this decision affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Penry appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did not categorically prohibit execution of persons with mental retardation. Writing for the Penry majority, Justice O’Connor noted that the Eighth Amendment prohibits punishments that run counter to “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” (Ref. 3, p 330). Justice O’Connor referenced federal and state legislation as “objective evidence” useful in determining how society views the execution of persons with mental retardation. Because only two states prohibited execution of offenders with mental retardation at the time of the Penry decision, Justice O’Connor concluded that a national consensus opposing the execution of individuals with mental retardation had not developed. In addition, it was argued that individuals with mental retardation are not capable of acting with sufficient culpability to justify imposition of the death penalty. Justice O’Connor, however, stated that there was insufficient evidence that all offenders with mental retardation lack such capacity. In contrast, Justice Brennan, who concurred in part and dissented in part, argued that all individuals with mental retardation have limitations regarding their culpability and therefore “the ultimate penalty of death is always and necessarily disproportionate to his or her blameworthiness and hence is unconstitutional” (Ref. 3, p 345). Justice Brennan also noted that execution of persons with mental retardation did not further the penal goals of deterrence or retribution. Following the 1989 Penry ruling, 16 additional states and the federal government passed legislation banning the execution of offenders with mental retardation. On September 25, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Atkins v. Virginia and to once again rule on whether execution of individuals with mental retardation violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual Dr. Scott is Chief of the Forensic Psychiatry Division and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry Residency Training Director, and Dr. Gerbasi is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Residency, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA. Address correspondence to: Charles L. Scott, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Davis Medical Center, 2230 Stockton Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95817. E-mail: charles.scott@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu