PENRY v. LYNAUGH 492 U.S. 302 (1989)

In this case on the prohition against cruel and unusual punishment imposed by the Eighth Amendment and the fourteenth amendment, the Court ruled that to inflict capital punishment on a mentally retarded prisoner was not necessarily unconstitutional. The Court, speaking through Justice sandra day o'connor, also held that the ban on cruel and unusual punishments would be violated in a capital case if the sentencing jury were not instructed to consider all circumstances mitigating against the imposition of the death penalty. In this case, the jury had not properly considered whether Penry's mental retardation and history of childhood abuse diminished his moral culpability and made capital punishment a disproportionate sentence. Because the Eighth Amendment mandates an individualized assessment of the appropriateness of the death penalty, no mitigating factor may be withheld from the jury. Punishment must be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal. Accordingly, the Court vacated the death sentence and remanded the case for resentencing under proper jury instruction.

Nonetheless, Justice O'Connor, for the Court, rejected Penry's second claim, ruling that the Eighth Amendment does not categorically prohibit the execution of a criminal who is mentally retarded. One who is profoundly or severely retarded and wholly lacking in the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his or her actions cannot, in the face of the amendment, be executed. But the degree of mental retardation must be considered. In Penry's case, that of an adult with the reasoning capacity of a child not more than seven years of age, there was some proof that his diminished abilities disabled him from controlling his impulses and learning from his mistakes; yet a jury could properly conclude that his disabilities did not substantially reduce his level of blameworthiness for a capital offense. The Court refused to accept mental age as a line-drawing principle in such cases.

Four dissenters argued that the execution of mentally retarded prisoners invariably violates the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause because such people lack the culpability that is prerequisite to the proportionate imposition of the death penalty.

thePenry decision also made law on the subject of habeas corpus relief in federal courts, extending the nonretroactivity principle of Teague v. Lane (1989) to capital cases.

Leonard W. Levy
(1992)