Mentally Retard Case Study

Virginia is that Daryl Atkins was not mentally retarded. I agree with Dr. Stanton Samenow, that Atkins was in the right state of mind to have willingly killed the innocent man without a question. Just because his IQ scores are low from drinking and doing drugs does not make him mentally retarded. I agree with the court’s decision of execution, because I don’t think life in jail is enough for someone like Daryl Atkins. After robbing a poor man and making him go to an ATM to get even more, Atkins just couldn’t walk away with all that money. He just had to go farther and kill a man, after the man did everything Atkins asked and pleaded for his life. That is the kind of man I believe deserves the execution

Doesn’t that scare you? Mitigating? Quite the contrary I submit. Quite the contrary.” After the closing arguments, the jury recommended the death penalty. Accepting the jury’s recommendation, the trial judge imposed the death penalty. Upon receiving his death penalty, Simmons soon obtained new counsel, who moved in the trial court to set aside the conviction and sentence. It was argued that Simmons received ineffective assistance at trial. Several witnesses including friends, neighbors, and a clinical psychologist who had evaluated Simmons spoke on his behalf, many exclaimed that Simmons was “very immature, very impulsive, and very susceptible.” Moreover, the trial court found no constitutional violation by reason of ineffective assistance of counsel and denied the motion for postconviction relief. Thereafter, Simmons filed a new petition for state postconviction relief arguing that the reasoning of Atkins established that the Constitution prohibits the execution of a juvenile who was under 18 when the crime was committed. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed. Instead of the death penalty, Simmons was sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for probation, parole, or release except by act of the

In other words, Billy White would have been classified as mentally retarded or intellectually disabled. In 2002 Atkins v. Virginia ruled that executing mentally retarded individuals violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately, during the time White was executed there was nothing in place to protect the intellectually disabled.

I select the Beckles v. United States location U.S. court of Appeals for Eleventh Circuit, A case in which the Court will decide whether it’s holding in Johnson v. United States. The Facts of the case: “On April 11, 2007, Travis Beckles was arrested because a sawed-off shotgun was located in his residence, and he had previous felony convictions, mostly for drug possession and sales. Beckles was convicted, and during the sentencing phase of his trial, the district court determined that Beckles was an armed career criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) who had been in possession of a firearm and was therefore subject to sentencing enhancement under the Sentencing Guidelines. Pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines, Beckles was eligible

In the case of Atkins v. Virginia, Daryl Renard Atkins is accused of the kidnapping, robbery, and murder of Eric Michael Nesbitt. Atkins was also charged with use of a firearm while committing each of these offenses ("FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.”, 2017). Atkins was convicted of capital murder and related crimes, by a Virginia jury and sentenced to death, but his case was appealed to the Virginia Supreme Courts, on the grounds that it is unlawful to put to death a person who has intellectual disabilities (Mental Retardation). Virginia Supreme Courts upheld the decision of the Virginia courts

The supreme court in Atkins observed that the execution of mentally retarded criminals in the states that permitted it was not common & these acts were unfair.

His representation motioned to set aside Simmons previous charges and conviction (Roper v. Simmons, 2005,p.4). The federal courts denied Simmons petition for a write of habeas corpus, due to finding no Constitutional violation, on grounds from ineffective assistance of counsel; thus denying his motion for post conviction relief (Roper v. Simmons, 2005,p.4). The Simmons case came to a halt later in 2002, when the Missouri Supreme Court “stayed Simmons’s execution”(Oyez, p.1); during which The U.S. Supreme Court decided upon Atkins v. Virginia. The Atkins V. Virginia case dealt with the execution of mentally ill persons (Oyez, p.1); The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally ill violated the Eighth and 14th Amendment’s prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, mainly in addition to the fact that several Americans deemed it cruel and

Concurrent Justice Antonin Scalia begins his opinion pointing out the fact that these petitioners bring their “case” to the Court, crying that their sentences are violating the Eighth Amendment, despite being cruel and unusual themselves. “They were charged by a sovereign State with murder. They were…tried twice, once to determine whether they were guilty…and whether death was the appropriate sentence…And now, acknowledging that their convictions are unassailable, they aske us for clemency, as though clemency were ours to give” (Justice Scalia,

There has been a case that has been going on for nineteen moths about a person named Dylann Roof who commuted inhumane act by murdering nine African American church goers due to his racial hatred towards the black community. After a lot of investigation the jury of six whites and three black gave their decision on him last month and he was found guilty of thirty three counts. For this reason the jury decides a death penalty on him even though the victims’ family forgave him. Although, it was certain that the Jury was going to lean toward the death penalty because he didn’t have any witnesses to help him defend and most of all he decided to be a lawyer for himself, which made difficult of proving himself innocent or even reduce the penalty

Synthesis- Smith and Hicock both received the death penalty even though the M’Naghten rule proves they should not have; the use of Capital Punishment in Kansas was reviewed due to this case because of their

He served his country in the Army, he had never committed a violent offense, but due to his priors of petty theft, Leandro was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences (“California Three Strikes”) for stealing $153 worth of VHS tapes for his children (Erwin Chemerinsky). Gary Ewing, terminally ill with AIDS and blind in one eye (Matt Taibbi) received life in prison without possibility of parole for twenty five years for stealing three golf clubs (Chemerinsky), he died in prison a year later. In the same state, California, the maximum penalty for rape is just eight years in prison. Only eleven years for manslaughter and fifteen for second-degree murder. The eighth amendment to our constitution claims to protect us from cruel and unusual punishment; however in 2003, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that these laws weren’t an infringement upon our rights as citizens, that life in prison for stealing children’s movies in golf club, though they had never posed a danger to society was just. Supreme Court Justice Souter said in his dissent “If Andrade’s sentence is not grossly disproportionate, the principle has no meaning (“Excerpts From Supreme

In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of several clients whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Some had intellectual disabilities, others were dealing with the aftermath of severe trauma, but each one was changed in some way. Whether their reasoning had been altered or they simply did not understand what was happening, any crime they committed was closely tied to their mental state. Logically, a major detail like the defendant’s thought process and motivation behind the crime would have been discussed, but this was not the case. Any evidence of their illness was forgotten about or outright ignored by both the prosecution and the defense. When considering each crime with their mental illness in mind, sentencing the defendant to death row is needlessly cruel. Their avoidance of the topic shows a complete failure to understand how important it can be to an individual’s decision-making abilities.

There are laws and decisions of United States government and higher orders that present controversy to the people of America. In the state of Texas the application of the death penalty is difficult to interpret, especially for the mentally ill, because there is no written law or bill that explains the execution implication in complete detail. The death penalty is a capital punishment of death for those who have committed such high crime. This penalty goes for everyone who does such act no matter who you are, how rich how poor, or where you stand in society. For the longest time, even with the mindset and understanding that those who commit crime to a certain level can receive the execution punishment, the concern and debate whether the mentally

To begin, the director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California explained how the majority of the death penalty is from race discrimination (Gass). Mostly, the victims of the death penalty is accused not only because of the crime, but because of their status in the community. In addition, the extent the criminal justice system tolerates racial bias and discrimination. This includes the accusation of the discrimination of minorities as legal (Gass). For an accusation of the death penalty, a reason can be that the accused is of a different religion, race, or ethnicity. Lastly, the eighth amendment of the constitution and the death penalty conflict. For example, As Gass wrote,“Instead, the court will limit arguments in the case to another Eighth Amendment protection, decided in the 2002 case Atkins v. Virginia, that executing people with intellectual disabilities constitutes cruel and unusual punishment” (Gass). This shows that the death penalty targets the minorities and interferes with the Eighth Amendment. Overall, the death penalty does not stop crime; however, it does increase the rate of death around the

Instead of doing an essay about mental disabilities and court cases, I have decided to write about why I can not do this essay. I do not have a viewpoint on it, I am not educated on the matter, and I do not understand how to approach the topic. There are plenty of other topics I could do, but this is not one of them. I have approached this essay with an open mind. I simply just do not care about it enough, and I do not know where to even begin. I have gone through multiple thesis statements, all of them not having enough facts to back them up. I have even tried to do the other side of the argument with no luck.