Historic DP case ends with life sentence in Texas

[pumpkinpie]

Historic Death Penalty Case from Texas Finally Ends with Life Sentence

A mentally retarded man in Texas accepted a life sentence for a murder that occurred over 28 years ago. Johnny Paul Penry was originally sentenced to death for the sexual assault and murder of Pamela Mosley Carpenter, a relative of a professional football star. Penry's death sentence was overturned twice by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to the plea agreement on February 15, 2008, the prosecution was insisting on a fourth capital sentencing hearing for Penry.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although the execution of the mentally retarded was not constitutionally banned, the law in Texas did not give mentally retarded defendants sufficient protection to ensure that their disability was considered as a mitigating factor (Penry v. Lynaugh). Penry was again sentenced to death and again the sentence was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 (Penry v. Johnson). In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia held that the execution of defendants with mental retardation was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Texas continued to seek a death sentence for Penry, whose IQ has been measured between 50 and 63, well into the mental retardation range. In 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Penry's latest death sentence.

www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2625&scid=64

[angrytexan]

Do you really think that this man could be found mentally competent three times all of the way to the Supreme Court if he wasn't competent? The facts are, he has admitted to not being retarded and to knowing exactly what he was doing when he brutally raped and murdered Pam Mosely. If anyone were to read the facts of the case they could see detailed notes hand written by Penry to his attorneys, and see interviews with prison guards who have spent YEARS with this man describing daily intelectual activities and conversations they have had with him. <Redacted>

[happyhaddock]

"Do you really think that this man could be found mentally competent three times all of the way to the Supreme Court if he wasn't competent?"

Yes, I do. Far too many people involved in "the system" will lie shamelessly to give the public the revenge it wants and not the justice it claims to uphold.

Example (LINK)

Now that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks have been freed, the Innocence Project is calling for a criminal investigation into Dr. Michael West. Peter Neufeld is asking that every case in which West has ever testified be reviewed. The linked article notes that there are 20 or more Mississippians in prison right now due at least in part to West's testimony.

West still stands by his testimony. He's now saying that even if Brooks and Brewer did not commit the two murders a third man has since confessed to committing, his testimony wasn't incorrect: Brewer and Brooks still bit those little girls. To believe West, you'd have to believe that in two cases that occurred at about the same time, two men living just miles apart coincidentally each repeatedly bit a little girl in their care just hours before a third man unknown to either of them abducted, raped, and killed said little girls.

Alternately, you could believe that Dr. West is a quack who makes sh*t up. I know which theory my money's on.

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www.thearclink.org/news/article.asp?ID=276

An additional circumstance to Penry's crime is the role society played in the creation of the man he became. Society prepared Penry all his life to commit his crime, yet it takes no responsibility.

For a decade, Penry suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his mother.

Even when he was a baby, "She beat him severely on his head and body, using fists, fingernails, boards, mop sticks, belts and extension cords. Once she tried to drown him in the bath. He would often be locked in a room alone for long periods, where he would be forced to soil himself.

Sometimes his mother would make him eat his own feces. One time, she took a butcher's knife and threatened to cut off his penis for wetting his bed."

In a neighbor's recollection of Penry's childhood, "Terrible, terrible screams . . . They weren't like a two-year-old crying or even a baby crying. They were horrible screams . . . "

Society watched and knew, but did nothing.

At the age of ten, Penry had various diagnoses including "organic brain syndrome with mental retardation and behavioral disturbances," and "organic brain syndrome with psychosis due to repeated trauma and mild retardation."

He never finished the first grade and his intelligence never had an opportunity to grow beyond that of a seven-year-old.

"I wanted to learn so bad, I wanted to be just like you and everybody else."

Society didn't care. ...