State legislators are meeting today to finalize a bill that would outlaw the execution of mentally retarded defendants.
The House and Senate each passed their own version of the bill, prompting the appointment of a conference committee to hammer out discrepancies between differing definitions of mental retardation.
First drafted by a Senate subcommittee, the bill is designed to implement the U.S. Supreme Court decision Atkins v. Virginia, in which the Court ruled that executing a mentally retarded person is in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The eighth amendment to the constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments."
In its decision, the Court noted that the deficiencies of mentally retarded persons "do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability."
Richard Bonnie, director of the U.Va. Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, served on the subcommittee on the Death Penalty and Mental Retardation that drafted the bill.
"Clearly, Virginia has to respond to the Supreme Court's decision in Atkins," Bonnie said. "The most sensible way to do that is to pass legislation through the General Assembly."
The House bill is sponsored by Del. James Almand, D-Arlington, who authored a similar bill that failed last session.
"I knew that some states already outlawed it and I thought it was wrong to execute a mentally retarded person," Almand said. "By the nature of their disability, they are at a disadvantage in the criminal justice system."
Currently, 18 states have laws barring the execution of mentally retarded persons.
Under the legislation, mentally retarded defendants would be considered competent enough to stand trial for capital murder, but, if convicted, would only serve a sentence of life in prison.
The source of dissent between the House and Senate versions of the bill is the language used to describe the threshold of retardation.
Before Almand's bill passed the House, committee members struck his definition of mental retardation and substituted it with guidelines used in Kansas, the only state that does not use the clinical definition provided by the American Association of Mental Retardation.
"I'm very hopeful that the conference will put the definition back the way it ought to be," Almand said.
The AAMR definition of mental retardation requires an individual to exhibit significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior before the age of 18.
According to Bonnie, the Kansas definition is too narrow and still would allow mentally retarded defendants to be put to death if the jury finds that they were aware of their actions.
"That would be unconstitutional," he said. "Basically, we think the AAMR definition is what the Supreme Court had in mind."
In addition to outlining the procedure for determining mental retardation, the two versions of the bill call for expert evaluators to be appointed to determine if an individual satisfies the definition.
"I think the issue is their disability and how it affects their reasoning," said Marti Snell, University professor for the Education school and a member of the Clinical Advisory Group that worked with legislators on the Crime Commission.
Snell emphasized that the mentally retarded have a propensity for being gullible and eager to please.
"When you put those together, it could cause someone to be led into a crime or confess to a crime they didn't do," Snell said.
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