Opinion ID: 1060419
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 24

Heading: Evidence of Contemporary National Values

Text: Because the majority has rejected the notion that it is interpreting the Eighth Amendment in this case, I am uncertain why the majority tries to divine a contemporary national standard on this issue. Just as  American conceptions of decency are dispositive in the Eighth Amendment context, see Stanford, 492 U.S. at 369 n. 1 (emphasis in original), only that evidence reflecting Tennessee's contemporary values should be relevant to the analysis under Article I, section 16. Nevertheless, even taking this questionable premise as true, I disagree that any national consensus has emerged that would warrant a change in the meaning of Tennessee's Constitution. As a simple count from the majority's tally reveals, less than half of all the death penalty jurisdictions have legislatively prohibited the execution of mentally retarded defendants. [17] The standards by which these prohibitions are measured are not uniform, and at least one jurisdiction bars such executions only when the defendant's subaverage intellectual functioning substantially impairs one's capacity to appreciate the criminality of one's conduct or to conform one's conduct to the requirements of law. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-4623(e) (1995). In my mind, the majority's evidence of a nationwide consensus is simply insufficient to legitimately conclude that Article I, section 16 constitutionally mandates a categorical prohibition on such executions in this state.