Opinion ID: 778778
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mental retardation and Atkins

Text: 9 In Atkins, the Supreme Court held at the end of its term that executing a mentally retarded individual violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. See ___ U.S. at ___, 122 S.Ct. at 2250. This holding applies retroactively; in Penry v. Lynaugh, when the question was last before it, the Court recognized that a constitutional rule barring execution of the retarded would fall outside Teague v. Lane 's ban on retroactive application of new constitutional rules because it placed the ability to execute the retarded beyond the State's power. 492 U.S. 302, 330, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989) (discussing Teague, 489 U.S. at 299, 301-02, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989)). Although Atkins barred the execution of the mentally retarded, it did not set down a procedure for determining whether an individual is sufficiently retarded to escape execution, leaving it to the states to develop appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restrictions on executing the mentally retarded, just as they developed new safeguards to prevent the execution of the insane following the Court's ruling in Ford v. Wainwright. Atkins, ___ U.S. at ___, 122 S.Ct. at 2252 (citing Ford, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986)). In Atkins, Virginia contended that the petitioner was not retarded, so the Court remanded his case to state court. 10 The Supreme Court's decision to return Atkins's case to state courts suggests that we should return Hill's Eighth Amendment retardation claim to the state for further proceedings. Here, as in Atkins, the state of Ohio has not formally conceded that the petitioner is retarded. Though Ohio courts reviewing his case have concluded that Danny Hill is retarded, see, e.g., Hill, 595 N.E.2d at 901, and voluminous expert testimony supported this conclusion, J.A. at 3264-67, 3332-35, 3379-80, Hill's retardation claim has not been exhausted or conceded. Ohio should have the opportunity to develop its own procedures for determining whether a particular claimant is retarded and ineligible for death. We note that, when discussing retardation in Atkins, the Supreme Court cited with approval psychologists' and psychiatrists' clinical definitions of mental retardation, and presumably expected that states will adhere to these clinically accepted definitions when evaluating an individual's claim to be retarded. See ___ U.S. at ___ n. 3, ___-___, 122 S.Ct. at 2245 n. 3, 2250-2251.