http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100405/BREAKINGNEWS/100405023/1086/rss07
Monday, April 5, 2010
Judge rules death-row inmate not disabled
Although this article is short I feel as if it covers something that does not cross many people's minds when they think of the death penalty. I think the ruling if someone is mentally disabled then they cannot be executed is a good one because sometimes a person with a mentally disability is not fully accountable for their actions due to lack of thought process. I feel as if there is a fine line that may be crossed by someone who is mentally disabled and that would be degree of the crime and degree of disability since mentally disabilities can vary in a lot of different ways.
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I was hoping that the article would say what the prisoner did to deserve the death penalty. He probably thought that he was not going to be executed and now has the live the last of his days knowing that he actually is going to die. I think that the prisoner would have made the 'mentally incompetent' plea while he was on trial and not a few days shy of being put to death.
ReplyDeleteThe circumstances of the case are available here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/case_updates/Htm/084761.htm
Briefly, David Johnston was found guilty in 1984 of murdering his 84 year old grandmother by stabbing and strangulation in 1983. The appeal that is described in Liz Grey's post is among a long string of appeals.
The article states in Liz's post states "Florida bans the execution of prisoners 'with mental retardation.'" However, it is not just Florida. As stated on the ACLU website, "On June 20, 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing people with mental retardation violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, overruling its Penry v. Lynaugh decision in 1989."
http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/mental-retardation-and-death-penalty