UPDATE: Wesbrook was executed on Mar. 9. EARLIER: Coy Wesbrook is scheduled to be executed in Texas on March 9. If the execution proceeds, it will be the eighth in the U.S. this year, half of which have been in Texas. Wesbrook killed five people after a confrontation with his ex-wife. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that defendants with intellectual disability (formerly referred to as “mental retardation”) are exempt from the death penalty. Wesbrook was tested for intellectual disability at the request of the prosecution, following a challenge by Wesbrook’s attorneys that he should be spared. Psychologist George Denkowski examined Wesbrook and initially submitted a report finding he had an IQ of 66, placing him below the standard level for intellectual disabilty. Several months later, he filed a new report based on “non-intellectual factors” that said Wesbrook’s “actual adult general intelligence functioning is estimated to be of about 84 quality.” Ohio State University professor Marc Tasse, an expert on developmental disabilities, said Denkowski’s methods had “absolutely no scientific basis.” Because of his unscientific procedures in Wesbrook’s and 15 other cases, Denkowski was fined by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists and agreed never to testify in another criminal case. Nevertheless, the execution has been allowed to proceed.
(C. Tolan, “Texas is about to execute a man who calls himself ‘Elvis’ and may be mentally disabled,” Fusion, March 7, 2016). See Intellectual Disability and Arbitrariness.
