When sentencing an offender for a crime, the punishment depends on what the law is attempting to accomplish. The punishment can either be based on incapacitation, retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, or restorative. Depending on the crime, the punishment can accomplish either one of several of them. However, when it comes to the death penalty it can be quite debatable and there are several criminal cases that came to the United States supreme court due to potential policies being violated that would prevent the offender from getting a proper conviction. One US Supreme Court case that had an issue in sentencing a defendant is Atkins v. Virginia. This case of Atkins v. Virginia (2002) is significant because it had to do with sentencing a defendant to death but was called for an appeal due to the defendant being intellectually disabled. The court case also added that executing individuals who are intellectually disabled is unconstitutional within the eighth amendment that protects against cruel and unusual punishment. When it comes to mental retardation it can have effects on the punishment and corrections system due to the level of their mental competence and how well a defendant who does have disabilities can understand the law. To better understand how mental retardation within the punishment and corrections system can influence the way they work the following should be examined and analyzed. First, the nature of the USSC case must be examined and explain why the supreme
There is no video of this incident. W-1 did not want to be interviewed. There are not any TPO/CPO’s in place at this time for either the complainant or the defendant. Your affiant queried MPD databases there is documented cases of domestic violence, the defendant has been arrested for assaulted the complainant before.
Charge: Arson to forest land, Arson to property, Unlawfully causing a fire forest, Misdemeanor unlawfully causing a fire of property
One day on February 20, 2002, a case was brought to the court and, argued pertaining to capital punishment known as ATKINS v. VIRGINIA. The jury convicted Daryl Atkins for the murder of a Virginia City man, as well as the kidnapping and armed robbery of the victim. Investigators found out that on the 16th of Aug 1996, Atkins, and his partner named William Jones kidnapped Eric Nesbitt from his place of residence, armed with a semiautomatic handgun. Atkins and William both of these suspect proceeded to rob him for all of the cash he had on him at the time and asked him for more cash and ended up withdrawing additional cash from a nearby ATM with Nesbitt's card. From there, Atkins and William brought the victim to a nearby location and shot him eight times including on his head and face, and killed him.
This essay is about the supreme court case between Gregory Lee Johnson and the state of Texas. Johnson burned an American flag in public and was arrested. This action was against Texas law. Johnson argued that this was a form of speech which is protected by the first amendment. The content of this essay will consist of the case, the arguments of the case, and the precedent cases.
Atkins v. City of Los Angeles, No. B25780 is a recent California court case that regards light duty accomodations for employers.
Facts: In Lexington, Kentucky, police officers followed a suspected drug dealer to an apartment building where he went. When they arrived outside of the door to the apartment where the suspect was they reportedly could smell marajuana. The police then knocked and shouted they they were there and in return they could hear what sounded like people destroying the evidence and running around. The police then knocked down the door and saw the respondent as well as drugs laying out without having to look anywhere. later the police found more drugs and paraphernalia doing a more in-depth search. “The Circuit Court denied respondent’s motion to suppress the evidence, holding that exigent
States are not limited to adopting the latests definitions of intellectual disability that have been published by certain organizations. Atkins v. Virginia, granted States the freedom to define intellectual disability within certain limits based on their own laws. The courts have given legislators the tasks to determine the definition of medical terms that have a significance to legal situations. In the precedent decided in Atkins v. Virginia, it was acknowledged that it's still difficult to determine if and which offenders of the law have intellectual disabilities because the case only extended its rule to a certain extent of offenders. Also, the court noticed the definitions of intellectual disabilities varied from the state to actual clinical
“Since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States.” That is completely wrong they should not be treated like this. It is truly unfair to put those people on the death row. Rather than doing that, the US government should make mental illness people take recovery including meaningful roles in social life, school and work. Make their lives full of things that will help them to get better so they will not even attempt to do any kind of horrible situation like stealing, killing, smuggling and selling illegals.
Apart from just ordinary people who are killed, capital punishment is practiced on those who are mentally retarded. In 1989 the Supreme Court upheld state executions of the mentally retarded, and since then at least four mentally retarded people have been killed. Also, at least 10 percent of death-row inmates in the United States are mentally retarded (Dority 37). We are choosing to kill people who don't even fully comprehend what they did. These people should be in hospitals, but we are waiting for the first chance to ravage their bodies with jolts of electricity.
In Addition, there is a chance mentally ill citizens could be convicted to death (“Facts”). According to Amnesty International and the National Association on Mental Illness, One out of every ten persons who has been executed in the United States since 1977 is mentally ill. “Many mentally ill defendants are unable to participate in their trials in any meaningful way and appear unengaged, cold, and unfeeling before the jury” (“Facts”). Many mentally ill defendants have been drugged against their will in order for them to be competent enough to be executed (“Facts”). Some states still haven’t put a ban on executing mentally ill people such as Organ, although the United States Supreme Court has declared that
Atkins operates an advertising, and marketing firm and was contracted by Fischer to create the logo and brand identity of for both the bottle label and the six-pack carrier of the beer he created called 'Redneck Beer '. The parties entered into an agreement which contained the following provision:
This would be immoral to convict a mentally retarded person of this heneous crime. Just to avoid roits, no authority has the right to arrest and convict any person of the crime that he has not done. Doing this might avoid the roits and all the damage that will be caused but this will also make that person who actually comit this crime let loose in the society to do such crimes again. Doing this will just deliver a message that people like the convict can commit such crime, kill the victim and no one can even touch them. Instead, cops will just arrest any random person to avoid hastle and
When intellectual disabilities and the criminal system intersect, it takes a lot of time and deliberation when establishing guilt and figuring out the appropriate punishment. This conflict becomes even more sensitive in criminal cases in which the death penalty is an option of punishment. As we learned earlier in class, the cutoff that many state courts have in place when deciding whether a person should be considered mentally ill is far too unreliable. For example, if a state court has the cutoff for mental illness to be an IQ of 72, a person who has an IQ of 71 wouldn’t be executed, while a person having an IQ of 73 would. This begs the question: is the difference between 71 and 73 enough to decide whether a person should live or not?
Generally, there are numbers of mentally retarded people in America through the year whose rights are not protected and they are sent to death.
Multiple studies show that the death penalty is not an effective way to prevent crimes (Masci). Over half of the states who enforce the death penalty have a higher rate of homicide than states that have abolished it. There are also criminals who continue to repeat the same crime because certain states will only allow the death penalty for certain crimes. Most criminals who are facing the death penalty have a mental illness or were under the influence (Clifford). Data shows that fifteen percent of the inmates in the United States who are looking to be executed suffer from a mental illness. These criminals often are not thinking clearly about what they are doing and what the consequences of the crime will be. In trials where the criminal has had a mental illness, he or she does not remember what happened or did not seek proper treatment. In approximately nine states, there have been various bill proposal to prohibit people who suffer from a mental illness from the death penalty. Typical cases that involve the death penalty are mistakes, over a quarter of the inmates on the list to be executed were wrongfully convicted (Banner). The common cause for