brilliant bill... i clap and clap..merle Now that's several cans of worms opened all at once.
What is the purpose of a penal/correctional system? Punishment or Correction? What is an IQ and how is it measured? Can an IQ test be falsified? What constitutes Mental Retardation, a person's behavior or his Stanford-Binet score? What is mental retardation and what should we do for the people who are MR? My daughter is a Special Education Teacher and I have some sensitivity here. What do we do with the people with MR who are violent? I have known several low functioning adults who have been diagnosed with Rage disorders as well. They are constantly getting into trouble with the law. The Law of the land. States Rights vs Federal. I think that there was a War fought over that one. Just what exactly was the ruling of Atkins vs Virginia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_v._Virginia "In the ruling it was stated that, unlike other provisions of the Constitution, the Eighth Amendment should be interpreted in light of the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." The best evidence on this score was determined to be the judgment of state legislatures." Also "Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is also unlikely to step in. In 2001, Perry vetoed a bill that had passed both houses of the state legislature, with bipartisan support, outlawing the execution of the mentally retarded. Perry appointed all of the members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, which has almost never granted a reprieve to a condemned prisoner during his administration." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/03/marvin-wilson-texas-61-iq-to-be-executed_n_1739342.html For the record - I believe that ALL life as sacred and I won't intentionally kill anything, much to my wife's dismay. I catch the big cockraches that we have here in New Orleans with my bare hands and release them outside. I am not in favor of the death penalty but the fact remains that in our world it is done. Bill (not Bill!) Find what makes your heart sing…and do it! ________________________________ From: Merle Lester <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, August 7, 2012 5:35:29 PM Subject: [Zen] Texas Set to Execute a Man with an IQ of 61 Texas Set to Execute a Man with an IQ of 61 >In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of >so-called "mentally retarded" people was unconstitutional, a form of cruel and >unusual punishment. Yet Texas, which executes far more peopleeach year than >any other state, is set to kill Marvin Wilson by lethal injection tomorrow >unless the Court steps in. Liliana Segura at The Nationnotes: >Thus, barring a last-minute intervention, a man who has been diagnosed with an >IQ of 61 and who sucked his thumb well into adulthood, now faces the prospect >of being strapped to a gurney and injected with lethal chemicals until he is >pronounced dead. “It doesn't usually get to this point when you have an Atkins >claim this strong,” his lawyer, Lee Kovarsky, told me over the phone on >Sunday. “This claim is really sort of the worst of the worst.” >>Kovarsky grew up in Texas and has seen his share of death row injustices. >>Yet, clients like his are hardly exceptional. “If getting the death penalty >>is like getting struck by lightning,” he says, drawing on Justice Potter >>Stewart's famous quote about the arbitrariness of capital punishment, “then >>it seems to strike offenders with MR a lot. Because their disability prevents >>them from effectively disputing guilt or culpability, they end up on death >>row for some of the least aggravated first-degree murders that are tried to >>verdict." >The evidence against Wilson, Segura notes, is murky at best--he was convicted >on eyewitness testimony that has proved shaky, the testimony of his accomplice >and his accomplice's wife that he was the primary gunman in the murder of >police informant Jerry Williams. >But no matter what Wilson is guilty of, the law of the land states that people >with severe intellectual disabilities cannot be executed. So why is Texas >getting away with this? >Segura again: >While most death penalty states have passed legislation to define what >qualifies as intellectual disability, based on similar clinical standards as >the Atkinscourt, Texas has not. >>Instead, it focuses on a dubious set of invented criteria that are known as >>the “Briseño factors.” Named after another Texas death row case, these seven >>non-clinical measures are meant to show whether a given defendant displays a >>“level and degree of mental retardation at which a consensus of Texas >>citizens would agree that a person should be exempted from the death penalty.” >The standards? Include comparing a defendant to the character Lennie from John >Steinbeck's (fictional) Of Mice and Men. Not exactly stellar scientific >advice, relying on the average Texan to discern whether a man is disabled >enough to not be executed..
