US Supreme Court stops execution of mentally disabled man

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court stopped an execution because a Texas jury had not taken into account a convicted murderer's low intelligence, as well his age at the time of the killing.

The 7-2 decision followed others overturning decisions in Texas courts, which have sent the largest number of convicts to their deaths, 22 of 58 in the United States so far this year.

LaRoyce Smith was found guilty of killing in January 1991 a former co-worker in a Dallas fast-food restaurant that he was trying to burglarize. His appeal was rejected, but heard by the Supreme Court.

"There is no question that a jury might well have considered petitioner's (intelligence) scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the justices wrote in the decision released Monday.
..............
Justices Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) and Clarence Thomas (news - web sites), considered the most conservative on the bench, dissented without comment.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20041116/pl_afp/us_justice_execution

[drscm]

1. As a practicing Catholic, let me be the first to say it:

Scalia and Thomas are a disgrace to anything human, much less divine.

[MidwestTransplant]

8. They are sick people

[CAcyclist]

11. Bring Me The Head Of Antonin Scalia

Remember that's what MM told his publishers when they asked him, if after 9/11 , he should reconsider the title of his book Stupid White Men and he said yes and they asked him what the new title would say.

[havocmom]

2. um, same SCOTUS that anointed the man who loves to execute regardless

of extenuating circumstances or limitations of the defendant?

[aquart]

3. I'm shocked they even bother.

We still have laws?

[kwolf68]

4. Goodie Gum Drops

With Bush in another 4 years we can get 2, 3 or maybe even 4 more Scalia/Thomas clones and we can light up the execution chambers...Mentally ill, sick, young, old, etc., etc...are all fair game.

This is the type of sick, perverted, twisted "moral" goddamn society these right-wing freaks wanted.

Thank god cooler heads of empathy and compassion prevailed over the dimbulbs Scalia and Thomas...was sick fucking beasts they are.

[fugue]

5. I begin to think that Bush was careful to get the election nowhere near

the Supreme Court. I think he knew this time it would be a 7-2 decision against him.

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Poor Antonin; he'll need to go beat up a couple of homeless people now

just to get it out of his system. It's no fair, it was a lawfully arrived at death sentence.

[peterh]

7. Me thinks Rehnquist is seeing a new light….

Via his own potential death sentence….sad that it sometimes takes a life moment to wake up….



Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had joined Scalia and Thomas in opposing
the outcome of the earlier Texas case. Rehnquist, who has been away from the
court since last month while receiving chemotherapy and radiation for thyroid
cancer, supported the latest decision though no explanation was provided.
In his appeal, Smith argued that jurors weren't allowed to consider evidence
including that he was 19 at the time of the Taco Bell robbery, that he had a
troubled home life and that he had a low IQ and learning disabilities.
A Texas court rejected the claim, saying that wasn't relevant because there
was no link between the murder and his diminished capacity.
The Supreme Court has been critical of prosecutors' handling of some capital
cases in Texas, which last year was responsible for 24 of the 65 U.S.
executions.
Also Monday, the justices ordered an appeals court to reconsider whether Texas
death row inmate Ted Calvin Cole, known as Jalil Abdul-Kabir, should get a
chance to challenge his sentence on grounds jurors did not take into account his
troubled childhood and emotional disorders. He was convicted of strangling
another man with a dog leash.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-15-04 1442ET(AP-DJ-11-15-04 1942GMT)

[MidwestTransplant]

9. I don't think he necessarily sees the light

this was a slam dunk and once in a while Rehnquist suprises but usually he Scalia and Thomas vote the same.

[4_Legs_Good]

10. Good news...

I think the SCOTUS is beginning to understand that they're the last line of defense in a Right-wing run government.

I think O'Connor will hold on another 4 years and as long as Stevens can stay alive (and kicking), only Rhenquist will be replaced in this administration.

If the Dems and the Centrist Republicans agree to kill any right wing wack-job appointment, we could survive this term yet.

david

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. I think the court is giving Texans too much credit.

"There is no question that a jury might well have considered petitioner's (intelligence) scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the justices wrote in the decision released Monday.

The people that prosecutors like to get on juries are ignorant and bigotted and conservative. And they don't care if you're mentally ill or mentally retarded. If you kill someone, they're going to kill you back. Hell, those idiots have even put in an express lane to the death chamber.
(No offense intended to the liberal texans here. I'm not talking about you guys.)
Duckie

[xpunkisneatx]

13. This is interesting..

I had a convo with a kid in one of my classes about this last week...My prof. asked in my medical ethics class whether it would be ok to execute a mentally challenged person. I of course said no, that no one should be executed, not even the most horrible people on earth because, as the old saying goes, "2 wrongs don't make a right". This fucking freeper then said "Why should we waste our tax money on scum that is just going to sit in cell and rot." I asked him if he was pro-life. He said yes. I told him he wasn't because killing someone at any age is not pro-life and to be so absolutly disgusting about it makes him look like an asshole. My prof. agreed. :)

[Catfight]

14. Brilliant logic, too bad the freeper drank the koolaid and doesn't

see the irony and buffoonery in his own flawed thinking. It's okay to kill someone born but not okay when they are not born. That makes no sense, yet this is their every day logic. They are very scary insane people.

[bloodyjack]

15. the thing is that most "pro-lifers" (I really hate that term, btw)

operate under the assumption that all life is sacred and inherently good.

And yet when it comes to capital punishment, their logic follows thusly: an individual commits murder because the individual is a murderer, and since a murderer's life is less sacred—or is subject to completely different value criteria (that are ultimately human constructs and therefore flawed by their very nature)—it would be permissible (no--NECESSARY) should, as a form of retribution for the murder, the murderer's own life be taken...because the 'sanctity' of the life of the murderer has been negated by his disregard for the life of another (I'm assuming most 'pro-lifers' only regard human life as sacred, as opposed to plant life or fungus or that of any other mammal).

God, that was incoherent.

Anyway, in a nutshell, 'pro-lifers' tend to be unabashed hypocrites. At least the Vatican II has taken a consistent stance on the problems of abortion and capital punishment, even if their solutions are horribly impractical.