[DOWNLOAD] "Equal Protection from Execution: Expanding Atkins to Include Mentally Impaired Offenders." by Case Western Reserve Law Review ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

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eBook details

• Title: Equal Protection from Execution: Expanding Atkins to Include Mentally Impaired Offenders.
• Author : Case Western Reserve Law Review
• Release Date : January 22, 2010
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 312 KB

Description

"Once a substantive right or restriction is recognized in the Constitution ... its enforcement is in no way confined to the rudimentary process deemed adequate in ages past." (1) In 2002, the United States Supreme Court announced that the execution of mentally retarded offenders is unconstitutional, (2) under the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. (3) This decision purported to provide absolute protection against execution for such offenders, whom the Court characterized as "know[ing] the difference between right and wrong and [being] competent to stand trial ... [but having] diminished capacities" and a corresponding reduced culpability for their crimes. (4) In practice, however, the Atkins v. Virginia decision has allowed states to narrow that protection because the Court failed to define the precise group its ruling encompassed. By "leav[ing] to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction," (5) including defining the term "mental retardation," Atkins shifted the debate from whether to execute mentally retarded offenders to who qualifies as "mentally retarded." Not surprisingly, this debate has produced definitions of mental retardation that vary among the states. (6)

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