United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Case No. 09-70022
On October 15, 2009 the NAACP joined Lee Kovarsky, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP and David Dow, University of Houston Law Center in filing an amicus brief (Marvin Wilson v. Rick Thaler) in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Wilson is a mentally retarded inmate on Texas’ Death Row convicted of a 1992 murder.
In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court categorically prohibited the execution of mentally retarded offenders as unconstitutional under the Eight Amendment. Conversely, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals regards the mental retardation inquiry as a Potter Stewart Test, which allows Texas state courts to evade the Atkins requirements, thereby subjecting clinically retarded offenders to executions that violate the Eighth Amendment. This scheme is unjust, unfair and entirely subjective. In filing the October 15 brief, Amicus Curiae argue, among other things, that the standard for adjudicating mental retardation must be clinically accepted.
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