Opinion ID: 1572783
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Diminished Culpability

Text: Nixon next asserts that the trial court erred in considering his impulsiveness and suggestibility in making a mental retardation determination. In Atkins, the Supreme Court addressed both impulsiveness and suggestibility as it relates to findings of mental retardation. The Court said: Mentally retarded persons frequently know the difference between right and wrong and are competent to stand trial. Because of their impairments, however, by definition they have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others. There is no evidence that they are more likely to engage in criminal conduct than others, but there is abundant evidence that they often act on impulse rather than pursuant to a premeditated plan, and that in group settings they are followers rather than leaders. Their deficiencies do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability. 536 U.S. at 318, 122 S.Ct. 2242 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added). In this case the trial court was not using impulsivity and suggestibility to determine whether Nixon met the diagnostic criteria for mental retardation. Instead, the court was simply addressing why impulsivity or suggestibility was not applicable to this case. The trial court said that [t]he record in Mr. Nixon's case refutes any inference that impulsivity or suggestibility contributed in any way to Mr. Nixon's crime. The court reasoned that impulsivity or suggestibility was not relevant in this case because the crime was not impulsive but was committed through a series of deceptions, with attempts to destroy any evidence of the crime, and by a lone perpetrator. The trial court did not err in reviewing the role impulsivity or suggestibility played in Nixon's crime.