I am so disgusted. A jury in VA has determined that a man who previously was not intelligent enough to understand his actions, now is, so he can be put to death. This man's IQ was raised apperantly through interaction with his lawyers. I thought the only thing that applied was his ability to understand his actions at the time of the crime.
I am in no way saying what he did is or isn't deserving of the death penalty for the crime he has been convicted of, as I do not know all the circumstances of his case. I am focusing on this very specific point of his IQ and whether or not the goal posts can be moved. Personally, I am against the death penalty in all cases as life imprisonment is far worse, but it is the law of the land.
Where does this end? Does this mean that if someone was insane at the time, but he is sane now, will he be allowed to be executed? Now, flip it. Someone wasn't insane at the time, but is now, executed or not? Me thinks in this bloodthirsty society, whatever rationale (no matter how absurd/inhumane/irrational) to put someone to death will be utilized How about if he was 11 at the time, but now is 18, and now is old enough to be killed by the government, will he be able to be executed? Slippery, slippery slope.
I hope someone can save this man from this injustice. He is currently scheduled to die in December.
Here's the link and a snip:
BBC:Fit to Die
A jury in the US state of Virginia has decided that a man with learning difficulties on death row is intelligent enough to be executed.
Daryl Atkins has twice been sentenced to death for murder, but in 2002 won a Supreme Court ruling that the mentally retarded cannot be put to death.
However, the court said it was up to individual states to apply the ruling.
To escape execution in Virginia, an inmate has to prove he has an IQ of 70 or less; but Atkins scored 76 recently.
He had previously scored 59 in 1998.
The intellectual stimulation he got from constant contact with lawyers in the case is thought to have raised his IQ above the threshold of 70.
Background
Atkins is a violent killer, with a string of felony convictions.
In 1996, he and another man abducted Eric Nesbitt, 21, a US airman from Langley Air Force Base.
They forced him to withdraw money from a cash machine, then took him to an isolated field where Atkins shot him eight times, killing him.
Atkins' IQ was tested in 1998, and was found to be 59, well below the level at which a person is deemed retarded in Virginia.
But prosecutors say Atkins was never retarded in the first place, indicated by the fact that he was able to load a gun, direct the victim to a cash machine and identify a remote spot for the killing.
An independent forensic psychologist, Dr Bob Stinson, told the BBC it would be "unusual and unexpected" for a person's IQ to rise 17 points in seven years.
"It would be easy to deliberately do badly on one IQ test," he said.
"But it would be very difficult to feign low cognition across time, different settings and multiple examiners."
Psychology tests used to evaluate a criminal's cognition typically include sophisticated traps to catch fakers.