The Supreme Court Case: Atkins V. Virginia

“If retarded people with the mental age of 5 could be executed, does that mean that 5 year olds should be executed?” Justice David Souter made this statement during oral arguments in Atkins v. Virginia. The questions posed by this argument include the inquiry of; when is someone handicapped enough to be irresponsible for a crime? When, in a person’s development, are they capable of understanding right and wrong and consequences? Finally, in the eyes of the law, what do we do about it? Some say it is only right that, as they are adults, they should be charged and treated like such. Others feel as though certain retarded persons cannot understand their crimes and the charging process is more complex. When the issue of an individual’s life is hanging on the line, who is right to decide where and which ethics are chosen?
The most notable Supreme Court case regarding this issue was Atkins v. Virginia in 2002. Deryl Atkins was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment after robbing a man and shooting him eight times with his accomplice. Atkins had an IQ of 59 and the courts consider legal mental retardation below an IQ of 70. Atkins was saved from the death penalty due to this and has saved many others since. More recently, Freddie Lee Hall has been on death row for over 30 years and his case is being reconsidered because of the previously mentioned case. He has tested his IQ multiple times and ranged in between 60-80, most commonly in the low 70’s. The problem lays in that the Supreme Court gives each state the freedom to decide what IQ is justified as mentally retarded, as well as what happens to criminals that meet that standard.
Currently, the United States has 12 states that don’t allow the death penalty. 18 states don’t allow the dea...

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...from completely liking the impact their condition has on their behavior. Mentally handicapped respondents, particularly the individuals who are not fiscally well-to-do, are regularly spoken to by inadequate direction. They say courts frequently choose trial lawyers who are "excessively unpracticed, exhausted, or uninterested" to legitimately shield their customersand left their defendant to make their own particular shutting contentions. At last, mentally retarded respondents face members in the criminal equity framework including barrier lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and juries—who are inconceivably uninformed of the nature and importance of mental handicap, are regularly more concerned with the political and expert results of acquiring a "triumphant" death penalty sentence than genuinely acknowledging the impact this condition has on the indivudual's perception.