In Topeka, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed...

In Topeka, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed a bill clarifying Kansas' ban on executing mentally retarded defendants, even though some panel members think it is too broad. The measure is designed to bring the state's 1994 capital punishment law into line with a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Virginia case. In prohibiting the execution of the mentally retarded, the Supreme Court said states should follow a "national consensus" on what constitutes mental retardation. The bill would replace the words "mentally retarded" in the law with "has cognitive disability," characterized by significant limitations in intellectual functioning and deficits in conceptual, social and adaptive skills. It would also prevent the execution of defendants whose mental functioning became impaired when they were adults, because of a severe head injury, for example. Kansas has seven people sentenced to death under the 1994 law. The state's last executions, by hanging in 1965. Execution of mentally retarded is SB 355. On the Net: Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org