Ruling that jurors in the most recent retri­al of Johnny Paul Penry may not have prop­er­ly con­sid­ered his claims of men­tal impair­ment, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent Penry’s case back for re-sen­tenc­ing. The Texas court’s deci­sion marks the third time that Penry’s death sen­tence has been over­turned dur­ing the past 16 years. The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned his cap­i­tal con­vic­tion in 1989 in Penry v. Lynaugh, a deci­sion uphold­ing the exe­cu­tion of defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion, but strik­ing down the way that Texas courts con­sid­ered this issue. Penry was again sen­tenced to death, but in 2001 the Supreme Court threw out Penry’s new death sen­tence because the jury was still not prop­er­ly instruct­ed about men­tal retar­da­tion. In 2002, as the Supreme Court was hand­ing down its deci­sion that the men­tal­ly retard­ed are exempt­ed from the death penal­ty (Atkins v. Virginia), a tri­al court sen­tenced Penry to death for a third time. The recent Texas Court of Criminal Appeals deci­sion over­turned this third sen­tence because the jury may not have under­stood that it could con­sid­er men­tal impair­ments beyond men­tal retar­da­tion as mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Penry was con­vict­ed of the 1979 rape and mur­der of Pamela Moseley Carpenter in East Texas. Defense experts have con­sis­tent­ly not­ed that Penry’s IQ is below 70, one indi­cia for those con­sid­ered to be men­tal­ly retard­ed, and experts state that Penry remains very child­like in his abilities.

(Houston Chronicle, October 5, 2005). See Mental Retardation. Read the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision. 

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