The case

1. Atkins v. Virginia,536U.S.304(2002), is a case in which theSupreme Court of the United Statesruled 6-3 that executing thementally retardedviolates theEighth Amendment's ban oncruel and unusual punishments.

2. The case • Around midnight on August 16, 1996, following a day spent together drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, 18 year old Daryl Atkins and his accomplice, William Jones, walked to a nearby convenience store where they abducted Eric Nesbitt, an airman from nearbyLangley Air Force Base. Unsatisfied with the $60 they found in his wallet, Atkins and Jones drove Nesbitt in his own vehicle to a nearbyATMand forced him to withdraw a further $200. In spite of Nesbitt's pleas, the two abductors then drove him to an isolated location, where he was shot eight times, killing him.

3. Footage of Atkins and Jones in the vehicle with Nesbitt were captured on the ATM'sCCTVcamera, which was of the two men with Nesbitt in the middle and leaning across Jones to withdraw money, and further forensic evidence implicating the two were found in Nesbitt's abandoned vehicle. The two suspects were quickly tracked down and arrested. In custody, each man claimed that the other had pulled the trigger. Atkins' version of the events, however, was found to contain a number of inconsistencies. Doubts concerning Atkins's testimony were strengthened when a cell-mate claimed that Atkins had confessed to him that he had shot Nesbitt. A deal of life imprisonment was negotiated with Jones in return for his full testimony against Atkins. The jury decided that Jones' version of events was the more coherent and credible, and convicted Atkins ofcapital murder.

4. The ruling • The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishments. In the ruling it was stated that, unlike other provisions of the Constitution, the Eighth Amendment should be interpreted in light of the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." The best evidence on this score was determined to be the judgment of state legislatures. Accordingly, the Court had previously found that the death penalty was inappropriate for the crime ofrapeinCoker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), or for those convicted of felony murder who neither themselves killed, attempted to kill, or intended to kill inEnmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982). The Court found that the Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition of the death penalty in these cases because "most of the legislatures that have recently addressed the matter" have rejected the death penalty for these offenders, and the Court will generally defer to the judgments of those bodies.

5. The Court then described how a national consensus that the mentally retarded should not be executed had emerged. In 1986,Georgiawas the first state to outlaw the execution of the mentally retarded.Congressfollowed two years later, and the next yearMarylandjoined these two jurisdictions. Thus, when the Court confronted the issue in Penry in 1989, the Court could not say that a national consensus against executing the mentally retarded had emerged. Over the next twelve years, nineteen more states exempted the mentally retarded from capital punishment under their laws, bringing the total number of states to twenty-one, plus the federal government. While there are 50 states, 19 don't allow the death penalty under any circumstance, making 31 a clear majority of the death penalty states. In light of the "consistency of direction of change" toward a prohibition on the execution of the mentally retarded, and the relative rarity of such executions in states that still allow it, the Court proclaimed that a "national consensus has developed against it." The Court, however, left it to individual states to make the difficult decision regarding what determines mental retardation.

6. 來源: • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_v._Virginia