Loughner Found Competent, Pleads Guilty to Avoid Death Penalty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/05/texas-death-row-mentally-retarded

 

www.nytimes.com/2000/11/12/us/mentally-retarded-man-facing-texas-execution-draws-wide-attention.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/milton-mathis-executed-killer_n_881885.html

www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/cases/death_retarded_veto.htm

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5005751/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/mentally-ill-killer-executed-texas/#.UCQOGUSQxos

www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/04execute.html

 

Perhaps you might re-read the passage I quoted ... you know, the "most Texans" having "no problem" bit? I stand by my characterization of that as being overly broad brush.

 

I read Trahan's report. I also read the quotes from the Texas Assistant Attorney General to the effect that Wilson had engaged in multiple drug-dealing enterprises. It is a fact that he'd already been convicted of robbery twice. Indeed, he was arrested for the murder that got him executed while reporting for a parole meeting on one of the robberies.

I absolutely am not trying to say that Texas was right in executing him given the Supreme Court's decision re: intellectual disability. I am simply saying that the case for Wilson's "qualifying" under that standard doesn't begin and end with: 1) a single assessment; and 2) his appellate attorney's citing of that single assessment.

 

That being the case, why hasn't the Texas legislature taken up the cause again since Perry's 2001 veto?

 

Well, why don't we compare the results of that single assessment to the cognitive assessment or assessments that Texas did?

Oh, that's right.

 

I don't know. But I doubt it's because "most Texans" have "no problem" with executing the mentally disabled.

 

If a 13-year-old is competent enough to kill someone, why should they be treated differently? No, this ain't 1810 or 1910. Kids today can be ruthless, with little or no respect for adults or human life in general. They know damn well what they are doing.

I don't for a second buy the idea that they are incompetent or insane in most cases (always some exceptions) and they shouldn't be able to use age as some sort of shield. You commit an adult crime, you get an adult sentence.

For the record, let me say I am NOT a supporter of the death penalty. However, IF you are going to have it on the books, justice demands that it be applied equally.

 

Probably a bit broad. But the culture is a bit more blood thirsty than other places where I've lived. People like to see the bad guy get hammered.... or locked up or killed. It's a "he had it coming" mindset without a lot of mercy for mitigating circumstances.

Again, I know that doesn't represent everyone, but the masses keep electing these "tough on crime" politicians over and over again, so that has to say something.

 

Actually, in Trahan's report he refers to some of those prior assessments. Some pegged Wilson with an IQ as high as 79 -- hey, we're getting into ******* territory here! -- and others no lower than the high 60s. He preferred -- with what appears to this layman to be reasonable but not indisputable logic -- the battery that led to the score of 61.


*******I will PM you with what I was going to write.

 

Problem for Texas, is well, they've got a bit of a reputation issue. The 61 IQ test may very well have been faulty, but the history of individuals such as Kelsey Patterson, as Az pointed out, makes everyone think twice.

 

Fair enough.