Supreme Court Rules Execution of Retarded Is Unconstitutional

Washington, June 20--(AP) The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel, offering the possibility of reprieve to scores of inmates in the biggest shift in the court's stance on capital punishment in a quarter-century.

Many inmates in the 20 states that theoretically allow execution of retarded people can be expected to argue that their sentences should be converted to life in prison.

Mentally retarded people should still be tried and punished when they ``meet the law's requirements for criminal responsibility,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority in Thursday's 6-3 ruling.

``Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct,'' he wrote.

The ruling was part of a piecemeal examination of capital punishment laws the court undertook this year, 26 years after reinstating the death penalty. The court is expected to rule next week on whether judges, not juries, can impose a death sentence. That ruling could affect 800 inmates in nine states. There are more than 3,700 death row inmates in the United States.

The court ruled Thursday in favor of a Virginia inmate, Daryl Renard Atkins, who was convicted of shooting an Air Force enlisted man for beer money in 1996. Atkins' lawyers say he has an IQ of 59 and has never lived on his own or held a job.

``The decision is consistent with increased concern about application of the death penalty,'' said Diann Rust-Tierney, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's capital punishment project.

``It reflects a true consensus that the death penalty should be reserved for the most culpable and a recognition that people with mental retardation do not fit that category.''

Recent concern over the fairness of capital punishment has focused on death row exonerations based on DNA evidence, and questions about the quality of lawyers given to defendants too poor to hire their own. Two states have put executions on hold until more questions are answered.

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