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Arkansas Parole Board Recommends Life Without Parole for Mentally Disabled Man

By Death Penalty Information Center

In a 4-3 vote, the Arkansas Parole Board recommended that Frank Williams' death sentence be commuted to life without parole. The Board had received petitions for clemency from 13 state, national, and international organizations and developmental disabilities experts raising the prospect that Williams suffers from mental retardation as indicated by a series of IQ tests. The requests for clemency emphasized the fact that executing a mentally retarded person is unconstitutional based on both Arkansas 1993 statutory ban and the U.S. Supreme Court s 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia. The prosecutor in the case, Brent Hattom, denied allegations that he had rushed the trial and sentencing of Williams to beat the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that deemed executions of mentally retarded people unconstitutional...continue to full post

Full post as published by Death Penalty Information Center on September 24, 2008 (boomark / email).