| Texas Will Execute Inmate With IQ of 61 on Tuesday Aug 6th 2012, 12:56 http://www.care2.com/causes/texas-wi...n-tuesday.html What is it with Texas.....??? Quote:
54-year-old Marvin Wilson is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday in Texas, even though extensive testing by a neuropsychologist has found that he reads and writes at the level of a 7-year-old and has an IQ of 61. He failed the seventh grade, was socially promoted through the eighth and ninth grades and dropped out of school in the tenth; he reportedly sucked his thumb into adulthood and was unable to operate toys such as tops and marbles, writes Danielle Citron on Concurring Opinions. A Beaumont, Texas, jury sentenced Wilson to death in 1998 for the 1992 murder of Jerry Williams after an alleged fight at a gas station.
The Supreme Court banned the execution of those with intellectual disabilities or mental retardation (the latter term is still used in the US) in 2002. States must follow the court's ruling, though some discretion was left to states to administer the injunction.
The Lone Star State Uses Its Own Criteria For Assessing Intellectual Disability
Texas has interpreted this to mean that it can set its own at criteria for determining if an inmate has intellctual disabilities. But rather than rely on scientific, clinical standards approved by, for instance, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), Texas uses seven criteria called "Briseño factors" that it devised on its own and that are not used by any other state. The AAIDD refers to them as an "impressionistic 'test' [that] directs fact-finders to use 'factors' that are based on false stereotypes about mental retardation that effectively exclude all but the most severely incapacitated."
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