9]12]12 US Supreme Court AIIows Texas to Execute Low-Q nmate MarvIn WIIson - StumbIeUpon

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Published on Wednesday, August 8, 2012 by Common Dreams
US Supreme Court A||ows Texas to Execute Low-IQ Inmate Marv|n W||son
Human r|ghts groups decry 'h|gh|y d|sturb|ng' dec|s|on by court
- Common Dreams staff
ln a move that human rights groups called 'highly disturbing' and in a reversal of its own 2002 ban
on the execution of individuals with diminished mental capacity, the US Supreme Court on Tuesday
refused to stop the execution of Marvin Wilson, a Texas man with a reported lQ of only 61.
Wilson, convicted of a drug-related murder in 1992, was subsequently executed by the state of
Texas Tuesday evening and he was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., 14 minutes after his lethal
injection began at the state prison in Huntsville.
"The state of Texas never should have scheduled this execution at all," said Laura Moye, director of
Amnesty lnternational USA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. "And it's highly disturbing that the
Supreme Court has refused to rein in the state's egregious behavior, ignoring its own ruling that
someone with diminished mental capacity should never be executed. "
The Supreme Court rejected without comment the last-ditch appeal by Wilson's lawyers on Tuesday
afternoon, clearing the path for his evening execution. The appeal cited a 2004 psychological exam
that pegged Wilson's lQ at just 61. The Texas benchmark for mental retardation is an lQ of about 70
or less.
"We are gravely disappointed and profoundly saddened that the United States Supreme Court has
refused to intervene," said Lee Kovarsky, Wilson's attorney and a law professor at the University of
Maryland.
"The Texas death penalty, like all capital punishment, violates basic human rights," Amnesty's
Moye said. "But even by standards in the United States, which is in the minority of countries
globally who continue to execute people, Texas is a rogue state, flouting constitutional restrictions
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