Human Rights Group Calls for U.S. Ban on Executions of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
Human Rights Watch, a respected watchdog group, has called on the United States to ban the executions of persons with intellectual disabilities.
Noting that at least 35 people have been executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty, Human Rights Watch singled out the U.S. as being perhaps "the only constitutional democracy whose law expressly permits the execution of persons whose cognitive developments has been limited by mental retardation and that carries out such executions."
Public opinion polls in the U.S. show "a growing public revulsion" against such executions, according to the group. Even among those who generally support the death penalty, executing persons with intellectual disabilities is viewed as morally wrong. Capital punishment "loses whatever moral legitimacy it may have" if it is used against people with low intellectual ability.
Also, persons with such impairments often cannot effectively participate in their own defense or understand legal proceedings. According to Human Rights Watch, because such individuals are "characteristically suggestible and eager to please persons in authority, and unable to cope with stressful situations," they may waive their rights during interrogation or confess to doing something they did not do.
New Human Rights Watch Report
The Human Rights Watch report, entitled "Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation," includes a brief description of events surrounding the conviction of Johnny Paul Penry, a Texas man who was sentenced to the death penalty for the brutal rape and murder of a young woman. While even his defense attorney admits that Penry committed the rape and murder, his advocates argue that the jury should have taken into account his impairment and his upbringing (which included serious abuse by his mother) and subjected him to a lesser penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution and heard arguments on March 27, 2001.
The suggestibility of defendants with intellectual disabilities is of major concern to Human Rights Watch. They report on the case of Earl Washington, who has a low measured I.Q. In 1983, Washington was arrested for a minor assault and during questioning admitted to committing other crimes. Police recognized that most of his "confessions" were false, but he was prosecuted for the rape and murder of Rebecca Williams, even though the confession was according to Human Rights Watch, "full of factual errors." Washington was sentenced to death following a three-day trial. Later, DNA tests proved Washington innocent - three days before the scheduled date of his execution. He was released from prison on February 12, 2001.
The "Beyond Reason" report notes that the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as meaning that allowing for execution of the "insane" violates the Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Court refused in 1989 to apply this reasoning to persons with intellectual impairments, noting "insufficient proof of a national consensus against executing mentally retarded people convicted of capital offenses."
For more information on the report just issued by Human Rights Watch, go to www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/2001/ustat/
The Supreme Court decision refusing to prohibit executions of persons with intellectual impairments on Eighth Amendment grounds is Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989)
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