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The California Supreme Court unanimous approved guidelines regarding how condemned inmates can claim they are mentally retarded in a bid to avoid execution, an action the state attorney general's office said could create a flood of challenges from the nation's most clogged death row.
Thursday's decision came almost three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was cruel and unusual to execute murderers deemed legally retarded, a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The nation's highest court left it to the states to define what constitutes retardation, paving the way for new laws and court challenges in more than two dozen states that did not already outlaw the practice. California Deputy Attorney General Robert Henry said the guidelines could afford the state's nearly 640 death-row inmates an opportunity to go before a judge to claim they are retarded. "You got 600 people on death row who are looking at any kind of excuse to get off," Henry said. Defense attorneys took a more measured approach. They said that since the nation's highest court ruled three years ago, just 30 California death row inmates have claimed they are retarded. "I think the attorney general's assertion, I think that's ridiculous," said Harry Simon, a Los Angeles deputy federal public defender. "The standards of establishing mental retardation are very rigorous." Thursday's guidelines were issued as part of an appeal involving a former Los Angeles gang member on death row who claims he is mentally retarded.