Death Penalty – Fact Sheets


The Death Penalty has not spared those with mental retardation

In May 1989, the UN Economic and Social Council adopted by consensus a resolution that recommended "eliminating the death penalty for persons suffering from mental retardation or extremely limited mental competence, whether at the stage of sentence or execution."

In 1997, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution calling on states to consider abolishing the death penalty and urging those states that still retain the death penalty to refrain from imposing it on people with mental retardation.

In 1998, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions criticized the US for executing people with mental retardation "in contravention of relevant internationals standards."

After years of outcry from the international community, in June 2002 the United States Supreme Court finally ruled that executing persons with mental retardation was unconstitutional. The ruling came too late for the 40 people with mental retardation who were executed since 1977, however, and for many more people with borderline mental retardation who were also executed during this time.

At the time of the Supreme Court ruling, 18 states had already prohibited the execution of those with mental retardation: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington.

All states must now comply with the ruling, following standards established by the American Association of Mental Retardation (AAMR) which defines mental retardation as: (1) substantial intellectual impairment; (2) impact of that impairment on everyday life of the individual; and (3) appearance of the disability at birth or during the person's childhood.