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The challenges of implementing Atkins

By Douglas A. Berman

I just noticed on SSRN this new paper on how well (or should I say how poorly) lower courts are implementing the Eighth Amendment capital ruling barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants.  The piece is titled "Of Atkins and Men: Deviations from Clinical Definitions of Mental Retardation in Death Penalty Cases", and here is the abstract: Under Atkins v. Virginia, the Eighth Amendment exempts from execution individuals who meet the clinical definitions of mental retardation set forth by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the American Psychiatric Association.  Both define mental retardation as significantly subaverage intellectual functioning accompanied by significant limitations in adaptive functioning, originating before the age of 18...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 26, 2009 (boomark / email).