Atkins v. Virginia
| Atkins v. Virginia | ||||
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| Negotiated February 20, 2002 |
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| Decided June 20, 2002 |
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| The plaintiff, although believed to be mentally retarded at the time of the trial, was sentenced to death under applicable Virginia state law | ||||
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| A law that allows the execution of the mentally handicapped violates the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and is unconstitutional. | ||||
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| Applied Law | ||||
| 8. Amendment to the United States Constitution |
Atkins v Virginia is a case that was tried in the United States Supreme Court in 2002 . The judgment of the court prohibits the imposition of the death penalty on the mentally handicapped and applies the 8th Amendment of the American Constitution .
case
Daryl Renard Atkins (* 1978 ), who with an accomplice kidnapped, robbed and then murdered a man, was sentenced to lethal injection for this. His intelligence quotient but in 1998 was 59, so he under the laws of Virginia was mentally handicapped. Daryl Atkins sued the United States Supreme Court that the death penalty for the mentally disabled was unconstitutional because of the eighth Amendment to the US Constitution . The court agreed with him.
Although actins likely saved the lives of many mentally handicapped people, it long seemed likely that he would be executed: A Virginia court ruled in June 2005 that Atkins was no longer mentally handicapped with an IQ of 76 or 74 (depending on the measurement) (The limit in Virginia is an IQ of 70) and therefore intelligent enough to be executed. In its decision, the court had not taken into account that the IQ could be increased from under 70 to over 70. Therefore, it has not been determined whether the perpetrator must be mentally disabled at the time of the offense or at the time of the judgment in order not to be executed.
"In the end, Atkins' contribution to ending the executions of the mentally handicapped could end its own."
Experts such as psychologist Evan Nelson suspect that by interacting with lawyers Atkins practiced reading and writing and improved his IQ.
"He was more intellectually stimulated than during his youth and as a young adult."
In August 2005, after 13 hours of deliberation, a Yorktown court ruled that Atkins was not mentally retarded. The execution date was set to December 2, but the execution was suspended. In January 2008, the prosecutors commuted the sentence to life imprisonment due to a falsification of the co-defendant's testimony, which has since become known .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Prisoner "too clever" for grace , Hamburger Abendblatt / dpa, August 8, 2005
- ↑ Donna St. George: Man's Va. Death Sentence Overturned , The Washington Post, June 9, 2006
- ^ Adam Liptak: Lawyer Reveals Secret, Toppling Death Sentence , The New York Times, Jan. 19, 2008
Web links
- Gabriele Chwallek / DPA: Deadly intelligence quotient , stern, February 16, 2005
- Gabriele Chwallek / DPA: Too smart to live , stern, August 8, 2005
- Smart enough to be executed? , Hamburger Abendblatt / afp, February 17, 2005
- written reasoning of the judgment , findlaw.com, June 6, 2003 (English)
- oral statement of reasons for the judgment (English; PDF file, 165 KB)