US Supreme Court bans execution of mentally retarded

The US Supreme Court made a landmark decision yesterday when it ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded was unconstitutional. Its decision that the punishment was "cruel and unusual" will have a huge and immediate effect in more than 30 US states that still put to death prisoners with an IQ of below 70.

The court was divided 6-3 over the issue with dissenting justices bitterly criticising the decision that overturns one of its own previous rulings from 1989 – when it said a convicted prisoner's mental state was not an issue.

While yesterday's ruling has no direct effect on the execution of non-retarded prisoners – 38 of the 50 US states still execute people – it does reflect a growing public concern about the fairness of the death penalty system. "It is not so much the number of these states that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of the change," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the court's judgment.

"The practice ... has become unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it. This consensus unquestionably reflects widespread judgment about the relative culpability of mentally-retarded offenders, and the relationship between mental retardation and the penological purposes served by the death penalty."

The decision was seized on as a considerable victory by death penalty opponents and campaigners. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said: "Thirty states have either banned the death penalty altogether or stopped the execution of those with mental retardation. There is no doubt there is a national consensus on this issue. Concerns remain about many other aspects of the death penalty but at least today we have stopped a practice most Americans and the rest of the world finds abhorrent."

The ruling came as it ruled on the case of Daryl Atkins, a prisoner from Virginia who was convicted of shooting an Air Force member for beer money in 1996. Atkins' lawyers argued that he has an IQ of 59, and has never lived on his own nor held a job. The state countered by arguing that Atkins had planned his crime, understood what he had done and was no less culpable for the crime than a person of normal intelligence.

The Supreme Court's decision that executing Atkins would be a "cruel and unusual punishment", and therefore violates his rights established under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, will have a widescale effect in the 20 states that, until now, have still executed retarded prisoners. Commentators said dozens or even hundreds of death row inmates in those states will argue they are retarded and their sentences should be commuted to life imprisonment.

The issue divided the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissenting. The trio – the court's most conservative members – made clear their views earlier this month when they complained stridently about reprieves the court majority had granted to two Texas inmates who claim they are retarded.

"Believing this view to be seriously mistaken, I dissent," Mr Rehnquist wrote, omitting the customary word "respectfully" before "dissent".

Mr Scalia, in a separate dissent, wrote: "Seldom has an opinion of this court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members." Opponents to the death penalty say that, since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 35 of the more than 775 executed prisoners showed evidence of mental retardation, with an IQ of 70 or lower. An average IQ is about 100.

The ruling comes at a time of growing national debate about capital punishment, sparked in part by the recent exoneration of death-row inmates because of DNA evidence and new calls for state moratoriums on executions. Maryland has been the most recent state to order a moratorium when its governor, Parris Glendening, announced last month that "reasonable questions have been raised in Maryland and across the country about the application of the death penalty".

The move followed a similar decision in Illinois, where executions were halted in 2000, after 13 death row inmates were exonerated, including one who had ordered his last meal.

Justice: Key case

One of the most notorious cases involving the execution of a retarded prisoner was that of Ricky Ray Rector who was put to death by lethal injection in 1992 for murder.

The case is remembered because Bill Clinton, the then Arkansas governor, returned from the New Hampshire presidential primary to oversee the execution in an effort to rebut claims he was soft on the death penalty.

Rector, who was said to be brain-damaged, weighed 300lbs and it took 45 minutes to find a vein for the injection. The medical administrator said guards and 11 medical staff had been needed. "I'm not going to take anything away from Ricky Ray Rector and the help he gave us with our task ... He helped."

Most memorable, however, were Rector's last words, which his lawyers said underlined his lack of awareness. When presented with his final meal he asked whether he could save the dessert "for after".

Andrew Buncombe