Five states in the USA passed legislation banning the...

Five states in the USA passed legislation banning the execution of those suffering from mental retardation during the year: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri and North Carolina.
This brought to 19 the number of US jurisdictions in which such executions are prohibited - 18 states and the Federal government. Similar legislation was vetoed in Texas by the governor, Rick Perry, who maintained that Texas does not execute mentally retarded inmates. President George W. Bush declared on 11 June that ''the death penalty should never be applied to any individual who is mentally retarded''.
In March the US Supreme Court announced that it would decide whether a growing national consensus against the execution of mentally retarded persons meant that such executions should be deemed unconstitutional as ''cruel and unusual punishment''.
To decide the issue the court agreed to hear an appeal by a prisoner from North Carolina, Ernest P. McCarver. However the Court dismissed the case in September as in the meantime North Carolina had passed a law prohibiting the use of the death penalty against people with mental retardation.
The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the appeal of a Virginia death row prisoner Daryl Atkins, who is reported as having an IQ of 57. It last ruled on this issue in 1989, when it ruled that such use of the death penalty did not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.