Increase in Mental Evaluations for Capital Crime Cases

I thought this was an interesting piece from the associated press.
In Mississipi and Virginia there have been an increase in cases where judges are ordering follow up mental evaluations, thus postponing trials for periods up to a year. However,the broader implications are what interest me:

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision prohibiting the execution of mentally ill inmates may have protected the severely mentally retarded, but it provided little guidance for the far greater number of inmates who are borderline cases.

Ruling on a Virginia case, the Supreme Court did not lay out specific standards for states, though it referred to guidelines set out by the American Association of Mental Retardation. The court said it would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute anyone with a combined IQ of 75 or lower.

IQ is intelligence quotient. An IQ of 100 is said to represent normal intelligence. An IQ lower than 75 is said to reflect mental retardation. The Supreme Court was quite specific. It said that an IQ of 76 would not grant criminals protection from execution under the Virginia case.

Most states have followed nationally accepted guidelines that define retardation as significantly below-average intellect combined with low "adaptive" skills at such things as communicating and taking care of oneself.

The issue of borderline cases is pertinent, as the article states - such cases are in high numbers.

Posted by sally at 05:16 PM