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M
entally challenged people have IQs of below seventy. Many mentally
challenged people with IQs of fifty-five and above can hold jobs,
have children, and do many things that “normal” people do. They
even commit murder and other crimes. When
mentally challenged people
commit crimes and are convicted, is it fair to put them to death, as other
criminals are sentenced to death? This is a question
that American people and
their courts have struggled with for many years. However, in recent years, it
seems that the majority of Americans have come closer to agreement on the
issue. Many people now think that putting mentally challenged people to death
is a “cruel and unusual” punishment.
Daryl Atkins had an IQ of fifty-nine. In the late 1990s,
Atkins was found guilty of killing
a person and was given
the death penalty in Virginia. His case was appealed all the
way up to the Supreme Court. In 2002, the court ruled that
Atkins and other mentally challenged persons may not be
executed. This decision opposed a 1989
Supreme Court
decision that said mentally challenged persons may be
executed. Since 1976, approximately thirty-five mentally
challenged people have been executed in the United States.
In the 2002 decision, the court said that
the nation had come to a
consensus against executing the mentally challenged. They said it is unfair to
execute someone who cannot fully understand how bad their actions were. It is a
violation of the US Constitution’s ban against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
