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Posted by Anna Escamilla
on July 1, 2002, 12:23 pm
I do believe that people who are diagnosed with mental retardation should be given the same sentence as others. However, unless we are able to distinguish between a person with mental retardation who has knowingly committed a crime, versus a person with MR who because of their mental limitations became involved in some way with a criminal act, we cannot assume that there is equal justice. I hope that Gov. Perry follows the outcome of the recent supreme court and the people of his state and sets up a system for dealing with people with mental retardation. I do not think that using a 70 IQ is an established clinical criterium. If evaluations were done with the most recent criteria, there would be consideration for the total outcome of considering a persons adaptive behavior and IQ (whatever that is). Someone should challenge the professionals to come up with an appropriate measurement to use in assessing a person's thinking when committing a crime whether they are people with MR or not. We need to get out of the dark ages.
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