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Notable (and cert-worthy?) Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on application of Atkins

By Douglas A. Berman

This post at How Appealing alerts me to a recent ruling from Pennsylvania that providing a fitting follow-up to this recently-noted law review article discussing the challenges that lower courts are having implementing Atkins, the Supreme Court's 2002 Eighth Amendment ruling barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants.  This new article on the ruling in The Legal Intelligencer details the basics: In a decision that may prove to be a lightning rod in the debate over Pennsylvania's use of the death penalty, the state Supreme Court has ruled that any criminal defendant with mental impairments, short of being legally defined as "mentally retarded," can be executed for capital offenses.  A dissenting justice accused the majority of being "draconian" and warned the ruling might lead to putting mentally retarded people to death...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).