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More on Georgia Mental Retardation Ruling

By Steve Hall

Today's Fulton County Daily Report has, "11th Circuit: Ga. Law Violates Eighth Amendment Rights of Mentally Retarded Death Penalty Defendants," by R. Robin McDonald.A Georgia law requiring that mentally retarded death penalty defendants, in order to avoid execution, must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment, a judicial panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has found. In issuing the opinion, the appellate panel reversed a 2003 Georgia Supreme Court ruling, finding instead that the state's stringent standard of proof "is not an appropriate way to vindicate a mentally retarded offender's constitutional right not to be put to death...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on July 01, 2010 (boomark / email).