I received a few questions about Wilson's execution from my ACC 2306 classes.
Wilson was "mentally retarded," which shoudl have exempted him from execution following the Supreme Court decision in Atkins v. Virginia, but Texas found a loophole in the majority decision.
- Click here for the article.
At 6:26 p.m local time last night, an hour or so after the last appeal was denied, Texas executed a mentally retarded black man named Marvin Wilson, a man who could not handle money or navigate a phone book, a man who sucked his thumb and could not always tell the difference between left and right, a man who, as a child, could not match his socks, tie his shoes or button his clothes, a 54-year-old man with an IQ of 61* which, his attorneys were quick to point out, is "below the first percentile of human intelligence."
. . . One of the members of the Court's majority in Atkins was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She's long gone, replaced by the arch-conservative Samuel Alito. Another in the majority in Atkins was Justice Anthony Kennedy. Three years later, It was Justice Kennedy who authored Roper v. Simmons, a 2005 case which outlawed the execution of juvenile offenders. In the intervening seven years, and even last term, Justice Kennedy has consistently sought to narrow the scope of sentencing. Yet Tuesday he was silent.
Can you explain that? I cannot. How can it be possible that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of a mentally retarded man with a IQ of 59 but not a mentally retarded man with a IQ of 61? Alas, here we must turn to the other part of Atkins, what the execution of Wilson informs us now is the most important part of Atkins, the part that immediately undermined the scope of the remedy granted in the case. After all, in Atkins, didn't Justices Stevens, O'Connor, and Kennedy all sign on to this language?:
To the extent there is serious disagreement about the execution of mentally retarded offenders, it is in determining which offenders are in fact retarded... Not all people who claim to be mentally retarded will be so impaired as to fall within the range of mentally retarded offenders about whom there is a national consensus. As was our approach in Ford v. Wainwright, with regard to insanity, we leave to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon its execution of sentences.
It was the last sentence which spelled doom last night for Marvin Wilson. Since 2002, those words have allowed states like Texas, and Georgia, to nurture and protect statutes and case law that directly contradict the spirit, if not the letter, of Atkins. For example, Georgia relies upon a statute which makes the mentally retarded inmate prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he warrants protection under Atkins, a burden no jury ever gets to weigh. Instead, prison doctors and state judges, the same folks who steered pre-Atkins law, get to decide when a condemned man has proven enough retardation to be spared.
For more:
- ABA: Executing the Mentally Ill.
- ACS: Executing the Mentally Ill.
- NYT: Does the U.S. Execute People with Mental Illness? It's Complicated.
