Saw a story on Fox News about some judge that said executing the retarded was cruel and unusual punishment. The case was about some guy that has an IQ of 59. Granted this isn't very high but whats the difference between being retarded and stupid? Can we still execute stupid people? Whats the deviding line between retardation and an uneducated idiot?

Now stupidity will be a defense.  Sad, sad, sad, sad.

Sgtar15

for some reason the fact that this post was posted by someone named rainman is fucking funny.
[:)]

hahahahahahaha

I picked the name rainman cause when i moved here from nevada i ain't ever seen so much rain. [:D]

"It was the Supreme Court, definately the Supreme Court..."

Public perception? Political correctness? unless the crime were particulary gruesome or horrendous, I don't think the majority of the American public would be comfortable with this.

Same thing applies to the death penalty for minors. There are some kids that are beyond saving or redemption and need to answer for their crimes, but executing kids is not going to happen.

This is what is really retarded.

[url]www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55791,00.html[/url]

The majority view reflects changes in public attitudes on the issue since the court declared such executions constitutional 13 years ago. At that time, only two states that used capital punishment outlawed the practice for the retarded. Now, 18 states prohibit it.

"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 for the majority.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist objected strongly to the decision, along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, saying[b] the majority went too far in looking at factors beyond state laws and put too much stock in opinion polls and the views of national and international observers. [/b]

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

Ya, I saw a similar report on ABC tonight. The newscaster actually said about the guy whose life was saved by this, "its not clear if he realized that this decision had saved his life". Or something like that. Basicly saying that this guy was so "retarded" he didn't even have a clue that he had been allowed to live. Give me a break.

I'm sorry, but you can't tell me that these flat out STUPID people can't tell that the heinous acts they have committed were wrong. Even if on a somewhat base level, they knew.



 

"Understands at Base level?"  He understood better than you think.

THe report I read said he had 20 prior felonies.

From DRUDGE:

"Yesterday's case, Atkins v. Virginia, No. 00-8452, involved Daryl Renard Atkins, 23, who has been on death row in Virginia since 1998 for the 1996 abduction and murder of Eric Nesbitt, a U.S. airman assigned to Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va.

After a day of drinking and drug use, Atkins and co-defendant William A. Jones grabbed Nesbitt outside a convenience store and forced him to withdraw money from an ATM. Nesbitt was shot eight times and died. The murder weapon was never recovered.

Atkins offered police a detailed account of his involvement when he was arrested. He was convicted in a trial at which the most sensational testimony against him came from Jones, who pleaded guilty in return for a life sentence. Jones told the jury that Atkins had been the triggerman in the murder, which Atkins has always disputed."


The "populist" justices condescendingly observed:

"Those mentally retarded persons who meet the law's requirements for criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes. Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a majority opinion that was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer."


As an attorney, MARK MY WORDS:

The antideath penalty zealots will have a field day with this.  Zealot lawyers will hire zealot "experts" who will knowingly and intentionally sandbag, alter, and otherwise falsify "IQ TESTS" in the name of "saving" their clients.

Assuming that the feeling of the contributors to this thread is congruent with the claim that stupidity will be a defense, I'll allow for a defense of the posts that follow in those terms.

I wonder, who forms your opinions?  Is it Fox News?  ABC?  The members of this board?    

Have any of you read the opinion?  Did you take the time to read what was written by Stevens, or did you hear a 5-minute blurb on the way home from work on NPR that allowed someone else's interpretation of the decision serve as yours?

If you take Fox's word for it, then you'll be searching for the wrong docket number.  

Stupid.

I'm sure that CITADELGRAD87 read it.

Read my quotes.  They come straight from the horse's mouth.  It seems that our Supreme Court is no longer using the Constitution to judge our laws.  It is using popular opinion and that in my opinion is very dangerous.

No, I'm talking about the Court's opinion, not about a Fox newsflash.  Maybe you did read the opinion, but you didn't cite it, just a foxnews.com story.

The "Drudge Report" isn't a reliable source of information?

You mean the "Washington Post"?

Reliable or not, I'm referring to an apparent unwillingness to read the actual opinion, for oneself.  Why rely on a media report before forming an opinion about the opinion?

Okay, mister here is a quote directly from Stevens opinion.  Guess what it says the same thing the article says.  He based his opinion on [b]national consensus[/b].

[i]It is not so much the number of these States that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of change.18 Given the well-known fact that anticrime legislation is far more popular than legislation providing protections for persons guilty of violent crime, the large number of States prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded persons (and the complete absence of States passing legislation reinstating the power to conduct such executions) provides powerful evidence that today our society views mentally retarded offenders as categorically less culpable than the average criminal. The evidence carries even greater force when it is noted that the legislatures that have addressed the issue have voted overwhelmingly in favor of the prohibition.19 Moreover, even in those States that allow the execution of mentally retarded offenders, the practice is uncommon. Some States, for example New Hampshire and New Jersey, continue to authorize executions, but none have been carried out in decades. Thus there is little need to pursue legislation barring the execution of the mentally retarded in those States. And it appears that even among those States that regularly execute offenders and that have no prohibition with regard to the mentally retarded, only five have executed offenders possessing a known IQ less than 70 since we decided Penry.20 The practice, therefore, has become truly unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it.21
[/i]

And by the way I don't appreciate being called Stupid.

I didn't call you stupid.
If you misinterpreted my post, then I'm sorry.  I don't think that you are stupid.

Yes, I feel we should execute [s]   all   [/s] retarded people.

Although I think that the claim that the majority view was based on "national consensus" alone, I'll respond to that by saying that the decision was based upon an interpretation of the 8th Amendment.

As Stevens notes: ". . . we have read the text of the amendment to prohibit all excessive punishments, as well as cruel and unusual punishments that may or may not be excessive."

To quote the opinion:

"A claim that punishment is excessive is judged. . . by those that currently prevail.  As Chief Justice Warren explained in his opinion in [i]Trop [/i]v[i] Dulles[/i], 356 U.S. 86 (1958): 'The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man. . . The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.'"

"ZIG HEIL"!

[:E] Duh, I dunno! (yes, I'm kidding)
I saw a show on The History Channel, I believe, about how the Nazis got rid of the 'undesirables', such as the retarded; ugly; etc.
They sterilized some people to clean up the gene pool.  Wow.
The doctors were given god-like license to kill and experiment on those unfortunate enough to be deemed worthy of their attention.
Sick shit, if you ask me.