Troy Farris was convicted in December 1983 for the death of 28 year–old Clark Murell Rosenbaum Jr., a Tarrant County deputy sheriff. Rosenbaum was shot twice in the chest after he had driven up on Farris and codefendants Vance Nation and Charles Lowder during a drug buy. However, the investigation and trial were conducted unprofessionally and with many errors. The crime scene was badly trampled by investigators. Sixty–three photographs of the sheriff’s patrol car disappeared. So did the plaster casts taken of tire tracks in the area. Marijuana was found on Sheriff Rosenbaum, but an investigator claims to have flushed it down the toilet. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that “the circumstantial and forensic evidence offered at trial …show more content…
In other words, Billy White would have been classified as mentally retarded or intellectually disabled. In 2002 Atkins v. Virginia ruled that executing mentally retarded individuals violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately, during the time White was executed there was nothing in place to protect the intellectually disabled.
Carlos De Luna was convicted February 2, 1983 for the robbery and slaying of 24–year–old Wanda Jean Lopez, a Corpus Christi service station clerk. Lopez was stabbed to death minutes after she phoned police and attempted to describe her assailant. Police found De Luna hiding under a truck parked in the area. He contended that another person killed Lopez and that he ran so he would not be implicated. The concept being applied to this particular case is eyewitness error. De Luna claimed that the actual culprit was Carlos Hernandes, who looked so similar to De Luna that friends and family had mistaken photos of the two men for each other. Hernandes was known to police and prosecutors because of his history of violent crimes, including armed robberies and arrest for a murder similar to the murder of Lopez. Professor James Liebman at Columbia University Law School concluded that De Luna was innocent and wrongfully convicted “on the thinnest of evidence: a single, nighttime, cross–ethnic eyewitness identification and no corroborating forensics.” Liebman’s investigation found that Hernandes “spent
The Eighth Amendment protects the right of prisoners before they are tried and after they are convicted. It also bars excessive fines and “cruel and unusual” punishments. In 1641, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties standards allowed the death penalty for blasphemy and had physical punishments such as cutting off ears and branding with a hot iron. But now the death penalty is no longer allowed in some states because its defined as “evolving standards of decency” and most are extremely cruel and the cost is expensive. The Eighth Amendment prohibits mentally ill persons to “cruel and unusual” punishments. The Supreme Court case in 2005 of Roper v. Simmons is about Christopher Simmons and he was sentenced to death in 1993, when he was only 17.
In the case of Atkins v. Virginia, Daryl Renard Atkins is accused of the kidnapping, robbery, and murder of Eric Michael Nesbitt. Atkins was also charged with use of a firearm while committing each of these offenses ("FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.”, 2017). Atkins was convicted of capital murder and related crimes, by a Virginia jury and sentenced to death, but his case was appealed to the Virginia Supreme Courts, on the grounds that it is unlawful to put to death a person who has intellectual disabilities (Mental Retardation). Virginia Supreme Courts upheld the decision of the Virginia courts
The case began with Warren McCleskey, an African-American man who was sentenced to death in 1978 for killing a white police officer during the robbery of a Georgia furniture store. McCleskey appealed his conviction and sentence, relying on the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of Equal Protection to argue that the death penalty in Georgia was administered in a racially discriminatory -- and therefore unconstitutional--manner.
That question is a debate that has been occuring for years. The supreme court has previously ruled that the dealth penalty is not cruel and unusual punishment there for it is not violating the eighth amendment in any way. Despite how the supreme court has ruled the death penalty, there is still many arguments till this day on whether or not it should fall under cruel and unusual punishment. In 1972, the case Furman V. Georgia was brought in front of the supreme court to rule whether or not they believed the dealth penality was cruel and unusual. This case almost ruled out the death penalty, but that didn't last very long. In 1976, the case Gregg V. Georgia came in front of the Supreme Court and the earlier decision was changed because a majority vote believed that the dealth penalty was not cruel and unusual. Eventually four principals were established to decided whether or not punishment was cruel and unusual. The four questions were, is it degrading to human dignity? Is it arbitary? Is it rejected throughout society? Is it unnecessary? Which many states ended up believing that the death penalty were along the lines of those four principals. Clayton Lockett might be a tragic example of the death penalty going bad. He was getting injected, but the injection didn't kill him up until an hour after it was injected. He had to sit there and suffer and many would of
One argument for ending the death penalty for the mentally ill is that it violates the offender’s 8th amendment constitutional rights of cruel or unusual punishment, since the person perpetrating the crime often is incompetent when committing the crime. “Mental Health America estimates that 5-10% of all death row inmates suffer from a severe mental illness.” (ncadp.org). The Florida murder case against serial murderer, Aileen Wuornos, demonstrates the true injustice of executing a mentally diagnosed individual. Wuornos shot and killed seven men along Florida highways between 1989 and 1990… she claimed that all her victims had either raped her or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute and that
The prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment largely concerns itself with disproportionate and arbitrary punishments imposed by the government. “The Court has repeatedly emphasized the Eighth Amendment’s expansive and vital character and its capacity for evolutionary growth.” (Kanovitz, 2010) Cruelty is interpreted as actions that oppose current standards of decency. As public opinion grows and changes these standards are apt to change. The vague wording of the Eighth Amendment allows room for the opinion of what punishments are acceptable to adapt to modern times.
There are laws and decisions of United States government and higher orders that present controversy to the people of America. In the state of Texas the application of the death penalty is difficult to interpret, especially for the mentally ill, because there is no written law or bill that explains the execution implication in complete detail. The death penalty is a capital punishment of death for those who have committed such high crime. This penalty goes for everyone who does such act no matter who you are, how rich how poor, or where you stand in society. For the longest time, even with the mindset and understanding that those who commit crime to a certain level can receive the execution punishment, the concern and debate whether the mentally
The lone person sticking to his assertion that Lewis acted violently has been Chester Anderson, not exactly an ideal witness. Anderson is an admitted con artist in jail on identification fraud charges. This has given the defense the opportunity to attack Anderson’s credibility.
June 20, 2002 - The Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Atkins v. Virginia that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional.
The Court did, however, state that the mandatory use of the death penalty would be prohibited under the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. The defendant in this case, Gregg, had been convicted on two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. The jury was instructed by the trial judge, who was following Georgia state law, to return with either a decision of life imprisonment or the death penalty. Justice Byron stated in his opinion that Gregg had failed in his burden of showing that the Georgia Supreme Court had not done all it could to prevent discriminatory practices in the forming of his sentence. This decision became the first time the Court stated that "punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution." (Bernstein 21) The punishment also cannot be “grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime charged, nor can it violate the convicted individual’s dignity.
The petitioner argues that the use of Briseno factors violates the eighth amendment because it may allow for the execution of the intellectually disabled because they contradict the medically accepted definition of intellectually disabled.
On November 27th, 1976 Mr. Adams’ car ran out of fuel and he was forced to walk to the nearest gas station (Radelet, 2011). Shortly after this Mr. Adams was given a ride by local teenager David Ray Harris who was driving a stolen vehicle. The two then spent the day together, even going to see a drive in movie. That night Mr. Adams returned to a motel where he was staying. Mr. Harris, now alone, was stopped by Officer Wood and his Partner Teresa Turko shortly after midnight. Officer Wood was shot and killed by Harris, who sped off too quickly for Officer Turko to get a plate number or a good look at the shooter. Directly after this Mr. Harris drove home and for the next few days, bragged to his friends
The supreme court in Atkins observed that the execution of mentally retarded criminals in the states that permitted it was not common & these acts were unfair.
On the early morning of March 3, 1963 in Phoenix, Arizona an 18-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped. She was take to the desert were she was raped then she was left near her home. About a week later she spotted the vehicle that was used in the kidnapping/rape and she wrought down the license plate number and reported it to police. The car belonged to Ernesto Miranda’s girlfriend (Twila Hoffman) and he fit the description. This made Ernesto Miranda a suspect.
An Impassioned Debate: An overview of the death penalty in America depicts the facts about the eighth amendment. The eighth amendment is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments (Masci 1). There are two significant cases that have inflamed the debate over the capital punishment, The Baze v. Reese case, and the Kennedy v. Louisiana case. The first case reveals the strong debate that the execution by lethal injection is inhuman and in violation of the eight amendment. The second case inflamed the