Shooshmoo
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TX Using Scientific "Lennie" Test To Determine If People Are Retarded Enough To Live
More solid work, Texas. Both hilarious and depressing:
"In 2002, the Supreme Court prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded, declaring it cruel and unusual punishment forbidden under the Constitution's 8th Amendment. Those with diminished mental capacity, the court ruled, are less culpable for their crimes than those with normal intellects. The reasoning was nearly identical to the legal argument the court embraced in forbidding the execution of juvenile offenders.
The court left it up to the states to determine who qualified as mentally retarded. In response, the Texas Court for Criminal Appeals, the top state court, cited in a ruling the child-like character "Lennie," from John Steinbeck's classic novel "Of Mice and Men," as its standard of what type of offender should be exempt from execution.
"Most Texas citizens would agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt from execution," the court found.
Those with more advanced intellects should face execution, regardless of psychological tests indicating mental deficits, the ruling said. The Texas standard has been used repeatedly to justify the execution of those who by clinical benchmarks would typically be judged to suffer from mild mental retardation.
Those standards applied to Wilson, who exhibited serious mental deficits beginning in childhood, family members said.
According to his sister, Wilson sucked his thumb into his 20s. His cousin, Beverly Walters, said Wilson was constantly teased about his intelligence as a boy."
"The other kids in school would always call Marvin dummy," Walters said in 2003.
On Tuesday, the use of Steinbeck's character to support the execution of those with less profound mental deficits was criticized harshly by the author's son.
"Prior to reading about Mr. Wilson's case, I had no idea that the great state of Texas would use a fictional character that my father created to make a point about human loyalty and dedication …. as a benchmark to identify whether defendants with intellectual disability should live or die," Thomas Steinbeck said in a statement.
"I am certain that if my father, John Steinbeck, were here, he would be deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in this way," Steinbeck said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/marvin-wilson-execution-texas_n_1753968.html
More solid work, Texas. Both hilarious and depressing:
"In 2002, the Supreme Court prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded, declaring it cruel and unusual punishment forbidden under the Constitution's 8th Amendment. Those with diminished mental capacity, the court ruled, are less culpable for their crimes than those with normal intellects. The reasoning was nearly identical to the legal argument the court embraced in forbidding the execution of juvenile offenders.
The court left it up to the states to determine who qualified as mentally retarded. In response, the Texas Court for Criminal Appeals, the top state court, cited in a ruling the child-like character "Lennie," from John Steinbeck's classic novel "Of Mice and Men," as its standard of what type of offender should be exempt from execution.
"Most Texas citizens would agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt from execution," the court found.
Those with more advanced intellects should face execution, regardless of psychological tests indicating mental deficits, the ruling said. The Texas standard has been used repeatedly to justify the execution of those who by clinical benchmarks would typically be judged to suffer from mild mental retardation.
Those standards applied to Wilson, who exhibited serious mental deficits beginning in childhood, family members said.
According to his sister, Wilson sucked his thumb into his 20s. His cousin, Beverly Walters, said Wilson was constantly teased about his intelligence as a boy."
"The other kids in school would always call Marvin dummy," Walters said in 2003.
On Tuesday, the use of Steinbeck's character to support the execution of those with less profound mental deficits was criticized harshly by the author's son.
"Prior to reading about Mr. Wilson's case, I had no idea that the great state of Texas would use a fictional character that my father created to make a point about human loyalty and dedication …. as a benchmark to identify whether defendants with intellectual disability should live or die," Thomas Steinbeck said in a statement.
"I am certain that if my father, John Steinbeck, were here, he would be deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in this way," Steinbeck said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/marvin-wilson-execution-texas_n_1753968.html
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