Summary
Atkins v. Virginia. Daryl Atkins, who has an IQ of 59, was found guilty of murdering an Air Force enlisted man inside a convenience shop and was sentenced to death for his crime. In this case, the court decided that executing mentally retarded people was unlawful (Johnson et al., 2022). Nevertheless, the court did not define what constituted mental retardation, and very little information was given to the states regarding the criteria they should follow.
In the case of Ring v. Arizona, the legislation of that state and the laws of four other states were invalidated. Under these laws, only the judges could decide whether or not there were aggravating circumstances that warranted the death penalty (Colwell & Ferguson, 2017). The court ruled that the Act violated the defendant’s right to a trial by jury since it permitted a judge, rather than the jury, to determine those aggravating conditions for applying the death penalty. This was found to violate the defendant’s right under the 6th Amendment.
Outcomes
The Atkins diet may enhance both the necessity for and the application of psychological examination and the legal decision of what constitutes mental retardation. The decision in Atkins could have far-reaching effects on the constitutionality of future challenges to the death penalty. Atkins probably laid the groundwork for an increasingly stringent definition of which criminals can be considered eligible for the death penalty (Johnson et al., 2022). It appears that the court is progressing toward restricting the most severe penalties to only the most serious offenders.
Consequently, according to Arizona law, Ring’s maximum penalty for first-degree murder was life in prison, and the Supreme Court ultimately voted 7-2 (with Ruth Ginsburg delivering the last vote). After a sentencing hearing at which Ring’s co-conspirators testified, and the judge determined that two aggravating factors existed, Ring was sentenced to death (Colwell & Ferguson, 2017). First, Ring intended to gain financially from the murder and conducted it in a particularly brutal, cruel, or depraved manner. Even though Ring’s criminal history was minimal, the judge still found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating ones and handed down a death sentence.
References
Colwell, C., & Ferguson, T. J. (2017). Tree-ring Dates and Navajo Settlement Patterns in Arizona. American Antiquity, 82(1), 25-49.
Johnson, S. L., Blume, J. H., & Van Winkle, B. (2022). Atkins v. Virginia at Twenty: Still Adaptive Deficits, Still in the Developmental Period. Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper, Forthcoming, Washington and Lee Law Review, 28(1).