Civil Rights for Murderers with Intellectual Disability - Essay Example

Civil rights for murderers with intellectual disability Introduction A murderer is a person who illegitimately kills another person without validation or good account for it. Murder cases have continuously increased in the recent years. The consequences of murder are many and include life imprisonment or even death sentence. Nevertheless, it is challenging to determine whether the cause of killing was as a result of self defense or was intentional. Moreover, the death cause might be due to stress, sociopath or intellectual disability. There has been a lot of debate on the murderers with intellectual disability especially if they deserve a death penalty. Intellectually disabled people start to have this problem at the age of around eighteen years and usually have an IQ of below 65. Therefore, it becomes challenging to determine the motive of the murder for such cases (Perske 470). Capital punishment can be exercised through various forms. For example in United States of America, a criminal can be killed by lethal injection, firing squad, hanging, gas or electrocution. Purpose of capital punishment in criminal justice system There are several reasons for and against capital punishment. Some reasons for capital punishment are listed below. Firstly, it is the only punishment that can makes sure that justice is met for the person murdered. Since murder entails taking away the life of a person, then to have justice equally served for a murdered person is to have the guilt person sentenced to death (Blume, Johnson and Seeds 89) . Another purpose of capital punishment is that it offers relieve and closure for the family, relatives and close friends. It is always a human behavior to get satisfied when a murderer is killed too. This is most evidenced by angry mob that severally either beat the murderers to death or burn them alive. However if murderers are taken to court, people especially those close to the murdered person can only feel contented if the murderer is handed a death warrant. On top of that, another purpose of death warrant in our criminal justice system is to issue a warning to those people committing murder but most important to those who want to start it. Considering that everyone fears death, criminals will fear committing murder. The would-be criminals even when they want to rob, will try as much as possible not to kill anyone because of fear of capital punishment Therefore, death warrant serves as the best cautionary not only to murder cases but also all other crimes that can be committed (Strescino 57). Before execution of death penalty, the criminals spent many years in prison where they are secluded not only from their relatives but also from their fellow prisoners. Others can be attacked by their inmates, beaten to death, raped or even stubbed. This encounter makes criminals to even fear committing murder. Death penalty may not be as painful as much as many people would tend to think. Most of the methods used by criminal courts of justice for death sentencing only take few seconds. This therefore does not result to the murderer felling a lot of pain. This is unlike the past where murderers would be subjected to cruel deaths for example through crucifixion, burning, buried alive, blood eagle, boiling to death, and use of animals like lions or elephants and suffocation. (Strescino 53) Some of the methods used by United States of America are so fast such that the victim does not feel the pain. For example, firing squad only aims at the heart of the victim severally and thus heart stops beating in a few seconds. Lethal injection involves use of lethal dose comprising of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride and saline solution and only takes around two minutes. Despite the above reasons, there are arguments that are against the capital punishment. They are as below. Firstly, the essence of punishment is mainly to correct the wrong doers of their mistakes so that they will not repeat them (Blume, Johnson and Seeds 600). However, death penalty does not serve this purpose because the criminal is killed instead of rehabilitation. People facing capital punishment experience the worst life ever in prison. They are left alone for many years without any visitation, molested by inmates and police and they may be left to die of curable diseases in their cells. Death warrant sometimes can be very harsh to the criminals especially if the process faults. The lethal injection for instance can fail to kill the person in the required minutes and this can be very cruel to the criminal (Perske 478). In spite of the death penalties being executed, it does not effectively reduce the levels of murder. For example in US, the rate of murder was as high as 15,000 people being murdered for every 100,000 people in the year 2012. Capital punishment on murderers with intellectual disability In the case of Penry v. Lyaugh in 1989, the United States Supreme Court backed the execution of criminals with mental retardation. It was heard by Justice Sandra Day O’Conner who just simply imposed the opinion of many people because even by doing so, the Eighth Amendment would not have been violated. When the case was being heard, only Maryland and Georgia states did not allow the executions (Perske 469). At that time there was no national consensus on the prohibition of sentencing those with intellectual disability to death. In another case of Atkins v. Virginia, (Blume, Johnson and Seeds 580) the Supreme Court of United States advocated for capital punishment on murderers with intellectual disability as unconstitutional. In this case which was determined on June 20, 2002, Atkins had been found guilty of committing capital murder, abduction and also armed robbery and had been sentenced to death. The court relied on other past cases like Harmelin v. Michigan Weems v. United States and Penry v. Lynaugh (Perske 471) to dismiss it because it was cruel and more than necessary punishment to execute the mentally retarded law breakers and considering that the IQ of Atkins was 59 which was evident that he was intellectually disabled. On top of that, there had been no person with IQ of 59 who had been executed earlier and if the court executed the capital punishment it would have damaged its image as one of civilized nations. The decision which involved 6 votes for Atkins and 3 against had been supported by lawmakers who had voted stunningly on the prohibition of the death sentence. By 2002, the number of states against execution of mentally disabled had grown up by 16 states. According to Perske (473) the Supreme Court offered that for cases involving people with intellectual disability, such people have great probability of being executed because they cannot be able to make sound judgments, understand other people or even can admit to actions they did not do. It also said that the execution of an intellectually disabled person could not have any effect because those who remained and were mentally retarded would not understand their reasons for execution and therefore that would not be a measure to prevent such people from committing murder. That is, there is high probability that there is no retribution and deterrence of murder crime by intellectually disabled murderers. During the case of Atkins v. Virginia, some constitutional amendments were bought up. One of them is the Eighth Amendment which does not allow cruel and unusual punishments on any American citizen. It required the evolving standards of decency to be maintained and this therefore would prevent the court from exercising the execution of criminals with intellectual disability. The other amendment was the exclusion of death sentence for rape of old women or ordinary murder and not to exercise capital punishment to underage people specifically those below the age of sixteen years when the murder was committed (Strescino 51) Legal experts and judges differ in their interpretation and application of constitutional amendments. For instance in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, Justice John Paul Stevens (Blume, Johnson and Seeds 580) who read out the verdict his jury did not sentence Atkins for capital punishment. The jury had considered many alternatives and research before coming with such conclusion. However, similar case heard in 1989, of Penry v. Lynaugh the judge ordered the execution simply because of the opinion of the majority. Conclusion It is evident that in our society, there are people who are mentally retarded and the law should recognize them. Despite some States of America having not banned capital punishment, most of them do not execute it. Death penalties have been reduced and only limited to few murder cases unlike in the past years when the constitution was passed. This has been through various amendments especially the Eighth Amendment which does not allow cruel and unusual punishment to any citizen . It is a big achievement to have cases regarding murderers with intellectual disability given a special hearing considering many of them do not clearly understand what they are doing. The American Association of Mental Retardation and the American Psychiatric Association were established so as to make sure that people do not fake insanity and therefore a good measure to deal with such cases. Works Cited: Perske, Robert. Intellectual and Development Disabilities. Darien. 2011. Print. Strescino, Peter. Governor Pardons Joe Arndy. Chieftain.2011. Print. Blume, John; Johnson, Sheri and Seeds, Christopher. An Empirical Look at Atkins v. Virginia and its application in Capital Cases. Tennesse. 2009. Print. Read More