The Role of Intelligence Quotient in a Murder Case - Research Paper Example

?A Psychological Perspective: The Role of Intelligent Quotient (I.Q in a Murder Case Primary Article Source: Chiaramonte, R. November 26). Cop killer seeks to avoid death penalty based on low I.Q. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/26/cop-killer-seeks-to-avoid-death-penalty-based-on-low-iq/ Summary of Article Source: The news article is about the murder case against Ronell Wilson, who was convicted and sentenced for a death penalty after doing a cold blooded slaughtering of two New York City police officers. The lawyers of the convicted suspect had tried different strategies in order to lessen the criminal sentence of Wilson from the death penalty into life imprisonment or less. Accordingly, one of the defenses used by Ronnel Wilson’s attorneys is the Atkins defense, in which the defense of the suspect will utilize the low intelligent quotient of the suspect. Particularly, the law states that criminals will be given less conviction sentence after a proof is made considering the intelligence quotient of the criminal is under the standard value of seventy (70). In relation to this, there are a number of felons that are convicted with the death penalty, but were able to escape such conviction with the use of the Atkins defense. For example, in the case of Kenneth Parker who was convicted with the death penalty, after a killing spree against a number of United States marines, was reduced into life imprisonment because his lawyers had proved that the suspect has low average intelligence quotient and the murder he had done was under the influence of alcohol. However, this type of defense strategy held not to be effective all the time in court because it also provides lack of reliability and credibility just like the case of Marvin Wilson, who tried to escape the conviction of the death penalty through providing evidence of having low intelligence quotient. Hence, with the case of Ronell Wilson, there is a thin line for him to be saved from the death penalty despite the lawyers effort of proving that his intelligence quotient is below seventy because the crime he did was a brutal murder and the evidence will not clearly show his ability of not knowing right from wrong (Chiaramonte, 2012). Psychological Perspective on Intelligence Quotient and Death Penalty Krause & Corts (2012) have identified intelligence quotient as the measure that is obtained through valid and reliable intelligence tests. Accordingly, the intelligence quotient of a person is acquired through a formulation dividing the mental age of the person with the person’s chronological age and multiplied by 100. In relation to this, people who have an intelligence quotient of 70 and below is considered to have an intellectual disability, in which the person has the inadequate ability of having adaptive skills and decision making skills to endure oneself in daily living. In relation to this, the United States Supreme Court mandated a provision of disallowing death penalty sentence upon criminals who have low intelligence quotient compared to the standard score. As a result, the role of intelligence quotient has gained popularity among criminal people in having a defense (i.e., the Atkins defense) against their case and in order to avoid oneself from the convictions of the death penalty (Young, 2012). Kane (2003) implicated that intelligence quotient is related to criminal behaviors among offenders, in which criminals who have the intelligence quotient that is below the average of the general population of law abiding citizens are more likely to do criminal offenses. Particularly, criminals who have a low level of intelligence quotients are considered to be mentally retarded in accordance to the description from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) (Ceci, Scullin, & Kanaya, 2003). Hence, felons who are characterized with mental retardation are seen by the court to be less guilty and not blameworthy to the crimes they have committed because they have no moral understanding of what is right and what is wrong. The prevalence of criminals with intellectual disability had left the nation and its judiciary system into problems and issues in dealing people with such disability. In relation to this, the justice system has different kinds of penalties imposed to criminals who have an intellectual disability, and they are more likely to receive punishments of community service and detention (Holland, Clare, & Mukhopadhyay, 2002). According to Cant and Standen (2007), the justice system needs to be flexible in dealing offenders with intellectual disability in order to create an environment of fairness and equal justice. However, Karl Menninger (1968) explicated that the rightful punishment against criminals should be established and executed despite their case of psychological inadequacy in order to maintain control of crime and societal balance (as cited in Kane, 2003). Nevertheless, the pretend illness of mental retardation in escaping death penalty among criminals has been in the focus of constructing mental and biological measurements that will examine reliably and validly actual mental states of the criminals (Salekin & Doane, 2009). Conclusion With the issue on the role of intelligence quotient in saving the life of a felon who is convicted with the death penalty has been used by the lawyers of Ronell Wilson in order to escape such dreadful death. Based on the psychological perspective, people with intellectual disability are considered mentally retarded in which they do not have the idea that their behaviors are immoral or wrong to the society. Accordingly, the judiciary system of the state had reformed its regulations in dealing felons with intellectual disability and giving charges that are not heavy such as the death penalty. However, this type of ruling from the judicial court created another alternative for felons to escape their convictions and will be more likely not to serve the crime they committed. Nevertheless, psychology, as a systematic and scientific field, had undergone different researches of psychological testing that will validly prove the mental capacity of every felon in the state. Psychology as a broad discipline from philosophy to medicine and its application to law had allowed experts to identify the different factors that would contribute to the explanation on the antisocial behaviors among criminals with intellectual disability. Furthermore, experts had raised their concern in aiding the judiciary system of the state in dealing and giving proper conviction to criminals who have an intellectual disability. Hence, psychology served with an important role within the society in understanding every aspect of a human person. References Cant, R., & Standen, P. (2007). What professionals think about offender with learning disabilities in the criminal justice system. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 174-180. Ceci, S. J., Scullin, M., Kanaya, T. (2003). The difficulty of basing death penalty eligibility on I.Q. cutoff scores for mental retardation. Ethics & Behavior, 13 (1), 11-17. Chiaramonte, R. (2012, November 26). Cop killer seeks to avoid death penalty based on low I.Q. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/26/cop-killer-seeks-to-avoid-death-penalty-based-on-low-iq/ Holland, T., Clare, C. H., & Mukhopadhyay T. (2002). Prevalence of ‘criminal offending’ by men and women with intellectual disability and the characteristics of ‘offenders’: Implications for research and service development. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 46 (1), 6-20. Kane, H. (2003). Straight talk about I.Q. and the death penalty. Ethics & Behavior, 13 (1), 27-33. Krause, M., & Corts, D. (2012). Psychological science: Modeling scientific literacy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Publishing. Salekin, K. L., & Doane, B. M. (2009). Malingering intellectual disability: The value of available measures and methods. Applied Neuropsychology, 16, 105-113. Young, G. W. (2012). A more intelligent and just Atkins: Adjusting for the Flynn Effect in capital determinations of mental retardation or intellectual disability. Vanderbilt Law Review, 65 (2), 615-675. Read More