USLegal Reporter

The Tennessee Supreme Court held Wednesday that persons with mental retardation symptoms may be subject to execution if their symptoms start after age 18. According to the Tennessee criminal code, mental retardation is a disorder in individuals who score 70 or below on an IQ test, exhibit “deficits in adaptive behavior,” and whose symptoms become apparent during the “developmental period, or by eighteen years of age.”

The supreme court affirmed an appeals court decision that Danny Strode should face execution for beating to death Harvey J. Brown, a store owner in Bledsoe County, during a robbery in 2001 when Strode was 20 years old. A trial court had previously ruled that the ‘developmental period’ may not always end at 18 years. When Strode was still 17, he scored between 75 and 88 on IQ tests, but subsequently scored 69 at age 23.

Source: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070815/NEWS03/70815038

North Carolina House Democrats this week struck language in an amendment to a bill proposed by Republicans that would prohibit the North Carolina Medical Board from disciplining a physician for participation in an execution.  The amendment would have effectively resumed capital punishment in the state, which was stopped earlier this year when the medical board threatened to revoke physicians’ licenses if they participated in executions. By law, a licensed physician is required to be present at executions.

The amendment was voted down on Monday. According to Democrat House Speaker Joe Hackney, the reasoning behind the decision to strike the amendment was to allow the court more time to reach a decision in a pending case brought by the North Carolina State Department of Corrections against the medical board, which also seeks to continue carrying out the death penalty. The department has asked the court to rule that a lethal injection does not qualify as a medical procedure, thereby allowing physicians to participate without disciplinary actions from the medical board.

Source: http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/165331.html

The New Jersey Supreme Court held Monday that a defendant may not receive the death penalty if one juror finds that he or she is mentally retarded. The public defender’s office contended that Porfirio Jimenez, an inmate charged with the kidnapping, murder and sexual assault of a ten year old boy, was mentally retarded with an IQ of 68. Prosecutors argued that a unanimous jury had to find that the defendant is mentally retarded in order to bar the death penalty.

The court held that ”[b]ecause the finding of mental retardation is like a dispositive mitigating factor, we hold that if a single juror finds defendant has met his burden of proving mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence, defendant is not eligible to receive a penalty of death.” The court also held that the issue of retardation should be decided during the penalty phase proceeding to allow a defendant several opportunities to present evidence regarding mental retardation. The court’s ruling did not address whether the prosecution can instruct the jury regarding the impact of issuing a non-unanimous verdict.

The New Jersey Legislature imposed a moratorium on executions in 2005 and is currently considering bills to abolish the death penalty.

The case is State v. Jimenez, A-75-2006. Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1182194747789&pos=ataglance

A federal judge on Wednesday held that the State of Tennessee may conduct an autopsy on prisoner Philip Workman, who was executed on May 9, 2007 for the 1981 shooting death of a Memphis, Tennessee police officer. Workman previously objected to the autopsy based on his religious beliefs as a Seventh Day Adventist. Workman was the first inmate executed under the state’s revised lethal injection procedures.

The U.S. Middle District of Tennessee Chief District Judge Todd Campbell ruled that the state has a ”compelling interest in assessing the effects of the lethal injection protocol that has been the subject of widespread constitutional challenge in recent years.” The court held that the state medical examiner needs to perform the autopsy to verify the success of the new procedures, which include more specific guidelines for the administration of lethal injections but still use the controversial three-drug cocktail as a painkiller.  

Workman’s attorneys, who have contended the state’s use of lethal injection causes unconstitutional pain and suffering, have until May 24, 2007 to appeal.

Source: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/05/federal-judge-oks-autopsy-on-executed.php

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a killer who scattered his victim’s remains across two states. Kenneth Biros was scheduled to die by lethal injection,for killing Tami Engstrom in 1991. Biros admits to killing Tami Engstrom, but claims he killed her in a drunken rage.

The execution was delayed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on March 20, 2007 to allow Biros to argue that Ohio’s method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The process involves administering three different drugs - sodium pentothal to relax the inmate, pancuronium bromide, which stops breathing, and potassium choloride, which stops the heart. It takes on average eight to 10 minutes for the inmate’s heart to stop.

Source: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/03-21-2007/6b960012f1736a96.html