[T]he Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing a mentally disabled person for murder is unconstitutional. Stranger still, Texas has once again used standards derived from John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men, to justify executing a man that meets the clinical definition of intellectually disabled…. “Anywhere else in the country, Mr. Ladd’s IQ of 67 would have meant a life sentence, not death,” Brian Stull, Ladd’s attorney, said in a statement. “But the Texas courts insist on severely misjudging his intellectual capacity, relying on standards for gauging intelligence crafted from ‘Of Mice and Men’ and other sources that have nothing to do with science or medicine. Robert Ladd’s fate shouldn’t depend on a novella.”…. The U.S. Supreme Court made a broad decision on the issue back in 2002 with Atkins v. Virginia. The high court ruled that executing an intellectually disabled person for murder was a violation of the Eighth Amendment which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.”
There’s no doubt but that Robert Ladd was guilty of murder. With an IQ of 67, though, there’s a legitimate question as to whether Ladd was mentally competent enough to understand the gravity of his act…or whether he was even able to distinguish right from wrong. Unfortunately, Ladd committed his particular crime in Texas, which has the legal equivalent of an express lane to its execution chamber. It’s frontier justice writ large in the 21st century, except that instead of stringing a criminal up from a live oak tree, it’s done with a needle and chemicals in Huntsville. Texas’ philosophy is that if they’re guilty of capital murder, the sooner they’re executed, the less taxpayers have to pay for their room and board. Period. End of story. Anything else is for Liberals and losers who can’t handle justice being done.
Never mind that corruption and malfeasance is still rampant in the Texas judicial system, and that the Lone Star State has executed at least one (very likely more) almost certainly innocent man. (See Willingham, Cameron) The problem with the death penalty is that there’s no way to un-kill someone, so if it turns out later that they were actually innocent…well, the occasional error is just the cost of doing business, eh?
In Texas’ case, they’ve found a way to skirt the Supreme Court’s ruling in Atkins that executing an intellectually disabled person constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” Not surprisingly, the rationale comes not from any legal source, but from Of Mind and Men. I’d wager John Steinbeck never thought something he wrote would become part of the standard for executing criminals in Texas.
The “Lennie test??” Really??
There are seven factors. Translated out of legalese, the Briseño Factors essentially mean a person who has tested as intellectually disabled but is still able to get an idea and follow through on it, or is not clearly being manipulated by others, or can handle a social situation without drooling, or is able to tell a lie and remember the lie long enough to keep telling it is mentally competent enough for execution. The same goes if he or she can talk coherently and was able to, you know, actually plan the crime in question.
Blume says that in practice the Briseño factors can undo almost any legal acknowledgment of intellectual disability, making Atkins just this side of worthless in preventing a mentally disabled person who may not entirely understand what they’ve done — hence why the Briseño Factors are also known as the Lennie test — from being executed….
Using the Lennie test almost anyone can be proved competent enough to be executed. “That’s where Texas is really an outlier and where people really seem to lose when it comes to the adaptive functioning,” Blume says. “The courts use the Briseño factors despite the fact that they are at odds with the clinical definition of intellectual disability, and when it comes to the Briseño factors it’s almost impossible to win.”
In effect, Texas has created its own system specifically designed to skirt inconvenient things like Supreme Court rulings. This works well for Texas, because if you ask many Texans, they think they’ve got capital punishment wired. Hey, if they weren’t guilty, why shouldn’t we execute them? Side issues like mental limitations or the inability to distinguish right from wrong are just roadblocks Liberals put up to keep justice from being done.
Except that the Briseño factors (the “Lennie test”) make it possible for a mentally disabled person who may well have no concept that what he did was wrong to be put to death. If it sounds barbaric, it’s because it is. Texas considers itself above the law when it comes to how it conducts its executions. The Lone Star State has executed foreign nationals in contravention of international treaty obligations, and it continues to execute mentally disabled criminals despite Atkins. Justice uber Alles, no?
I find it interesting, and more than a little disturbing, that a state which is home to so many people who claim to be pro-life can be so vehemently and recklessly pro-death. A cynical person might think that Texas views executions as a blood sport. They might just be correct in that assessment.
John Steinbeck must be spinning in his grave.
