Atkins v. Virginia
Case Overview
CITATION
536 U.S. 304 (2002)
ARGUED ON
February 20, 2002
DECIDED ON
June 20, 2002
DECIDED BY
The Rehnquist Court
Legal Issue
Is the execution of a mentally retarded individual cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment?
Holding
Yes, the execution of a mentally retarded individual is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Background
On August 16, 1996, Daryl Atkins and William Jones robbed and abducted Eric Nesbitt, an airman from Langley Air Force Base. Armed with a semiautomatic handgun, Atkins and Jones drove Nesbitt to withdrawal $200 in cash from the ATM before they took him to an isolated location and shot him eight times. The two defendants both confirmed these events in their testimony against each other, but since Jones’ testimony was more coherent compared to Atkins’, the jury believed his account that Atkins had been the one to kill Nesbitt. In the penalty phase of Atkins’ trial, the state proved two aggravating factors in favor of the death penalty: future dangerousness and the vileness of the offense. The defense had only one witness, forensic psychologist Dr. Evan Nelson, who testified that Atkins was “mildly mentally retarded” (Atkins had an IQ of 59). Atkins was sentenced to death, but the Virginia Supreme Court ordered a second sentencing hearing due to an error with a form used by the trial court. At the second hearing, Dr. Nelson testified again, but the state rebutted with the testimony of Dr. Stanton Samenow, who argued that Atkins was of average intelligence, not mentally retarded, and that he was diagnosable of having anti-social personality disorder. Atkins was again sentenced to death, and the decision was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court before the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Daryl Atkins and his legal team sit in court. | Credit:
Summary
6 — 3 decision for Atkins
Stevens
Thomas
Scalia
O’Connor
Souter
Kennedy
Breyer
Rehnquist
Ginsburg
Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens held that the execution of a mentally retarded individual violates the Eighth Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Stevens explained that in Weems v. United States (1910), the Court held that punishment for a crime should be proportionate to the offense and cited Justice Stewart’s statement in Robinson v. California (1962) that “[e]ven one day in prison would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the 'crime' of having a common cold.” In applying the protections of the Eighth Amendment, Steven explained that its meaning must be drawn from the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,” Trop v. Dulles (1958). In Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), the Court upheld the death penalty for mentally retarded defendants, but Stevens pointed out the “consistency of the direction of change” in state laws prohibiting the practice and the lack of such defendants being executed in states where it is still legal as evidence of a shifting trend. He wrote that “[t]he practice, therefore, has become truly unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it.” Stevens reaffirmed the Court’s holding in Ford v. Wainwright (1986) that held that states have the responsibility to develop ways to measure a defendant’s mental capacity and did not weigh in with any guidelines. Stevens noted that the Court’s decision did not interfere with the social purposes of the amendment, deterrence and retribution, and concluded that executions of mentally retarded defendants are offensive to the Eighth Amendment.
In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained that he wrote separately to call attention to the reliance on foreign laws, the views of professional and religious organizations, and opinion polls in the Court's opinion. Rehnquist questioned the validity of these elements and pointed out the unreliability of public opinion polling. Instead of relying on these extrajudicial factors, Rehnquist argued that the decisions of state legislatures and the determinations of sentencing juries “ought to be the sole indicators by which courts ascertain the contemporary American conceptions of decency for purposes of the Eighth Amendment.” Rehnquist acknowledged that 18 states had passed laws disallowing the death penalty for mentally retarded individuals, but he argued that the fact that 20 states still allowed the practice showed that there was not a national consensus developed to justify the Court’s ruling.
In his dissent, Justice Scalia described the Court’s decision as “the pinnacle of our Eighth Amendment death-is-different jurisprudence.” Scalia argued that the majority’s decision had no support in the text or history of the Constitution and that they were wrong to claim that there was a national consensus on the issue. Scalia criticized the majority’s reliance on the 18 state laws passed as justification for their decision, pointing out that they only represent 47% of death penalty jurisdictions, far from a consensus. Additionally, he clarified that of the 18 states cited by the majority, only seven have passed statutes as narrow in scope as the Court’s decision. Scalia concluded with a warning of the potential implications of the ruling and against what he viewed as judicial activism. He wrote, “[t]here is something to be said for popular abolition of the death penalty; there is nothing to be said for its incremental abolition by this Court.”