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. Atkins’ case was then sent back to the York County Circuit Court, where, in 2005, a jury deter­mined that he was not retard­ed, a deci­sion that allowed his death sen­tence to stand. In their most recent appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, Atkins’ attor­neys argued that the jury should not have been told that Akins had been con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death. The lawyers stat­ed that this infor­ma­tion dis­tract­ed the jury from fair­ly car­ry­ing out its duty to decide whether Atkins was men­tal­ly retard­ed. The Virginia Supreme Court agreed, stat­ing in its opin­ion, ​“The fact that the jury knew a pri­or jury had sen­tenced Atkins to death prej­u­diced his right to a fair tri­al on the issue of his mental retardation.”

(Associated Press, June 8, 2006). See Mental Retardation and U.S. Supreme Court.

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