The Virginia Supreme Court unanimously overturned a trial court's determination that Daryl Atkins was not mentally retarded and that he was eligible for the death penalty. Atkins' 2002 appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in the Court
ruling that the execution of the mentally retarded is
unconstitutional, but the ruling left it up to states to define
retardation and determine the procedures for establishing this disability.
Katherine Norgard's recent book, "Hard to Place: A Crime of Alcohol," is a personal account of the trauma experienced by her family when her adopted son is charged with a capital crime. The book is the author's story of fighting to save her son after he was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of an elderly couple in Tuscon, Arizona. At the time of his trial, she still did not know that her son, John Eastlack, had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome, despite his signs of mental illness.
