On September 10, Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled that Kentucky​’s new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col is incon­sis­tent with state law and does not pro­vide safe­guards to pre­vent an inmate who is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled or crim­i­nal­ly insane from being exe­cut­ed. As a result, Judge Shepherd stayed the September 16 exe­cu­tion of Gregory Wilson, stat­ing, ​“Because the state’s pro­to­col does­n’t include a mech­a­nism to deter­mine if some­one is men­tal­ly retard­ed and there are seri­ous ques­tions about Wilson’s men­tal state, the exe­cu­tion can­not go for­ward.” Wilson’s attor­ney has stat­ed that the only men­tal test giv­en to him showed an IQ of 62, well below the lim­it of 70 usu­al­ly used as an indi­ca­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Judge Shepherd wrote, ​“The Court finds there is a good faith basis to believe that Wilson may be inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty,” and not­ed that ​“Mr. Wilson appears to be the only inmate on death row in Kentucky who had no lawyer at tri­al.” The judge also ques­tioned why Kentucky’s new pro­to­col did not allow for a 1‑drug lethal injec­tion process since that is per­mit­ted under the state law. The state is appeal­ing the ruling.

(B. Barrouquerre, ​“Judge halts exe­cu­tion sched­uled in Kentucky,” Dayton Daily News, September 10, 2010). See Executions and Intellectual Disability.

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