Texas Executes Man with IQ of Just 61

August 08, 2012 from Democracy Now!

Last night, Texas executed 54-year-old Marvin Wilson, despite evidence that he was mentally disabled and reportedly sucked his thumb into adulthood. Wilson's lawyers had argued that an IQ test on which Wilson scored 61 -- nine points below the standard for competency -- should have saved him from execution under a 2002 US Supreme Court ruling barring execution of the intellectually disabled. Wilson is the second prisoner in Texas to be executed by a new lethal injection method involving a single drug. We speak with Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz, who has long reported on the death penalty, especially in Texas, where she has covered the state's ongoing execution of developmentally disabled prisoners.

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Marvin Wilson

Marvin Lee Wilson was an American murderer who was executed by the State of Texas on August 7, 2012. He entered death row on May 9, 1992, for the murder of a police drug informant. Wilson abducted and shot 21-year-old Jerry Robert Williams following a physical confrontation be... Explore this topic

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanas... Explore this topic

Huntsville Prison

Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit, nicknamed "Walls Unit," is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre facility, near Downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the... Explore this topic

Texas

Texas is the second most populous and the second-largest of the 50 states in the United States of America, and the largest state in the 48 contiguous United States. Geographically located in the South Central part of the country, Texas shares an international border with the M... Explore this topic

Cruel and unusual punishment

Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to it. Explore this topic

Death row

Death row, in English-speaking countries that have capital punishment, is the place, often a section of a prison, that houses prisoners awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility ... Explore this topic

Mental retardation

Mental retardation or general learning disability is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors. It has historically been defined as an intelligence quotient sc... Explore this topic

Capital punishment

Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution... Explore this topic

Huntsville

Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population is 38,548 as of the 2010 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is located 70 miles north of Houston in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate... Explore this topic

Developmental disability

Developmental disability is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments, manifested prior to age 18. It is not synonymous with "developmental delay" which is often a consequence of a temporary ill... Explore this topic

Also See

Marvin Wilson

Lethal injection

Huntsville Prison