the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of LaRoyce Lathair Smith

the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of LaRoyce Lathair Smith because jurors in his trial did not consider his learning disability and other evidence.
The unsigned 7-2 decision is another reproach of Texas, which executes more people than any other state. Texas courts had turned down LaRoyce Lathair Smith's appeal of his sentence for the January 1991 killing of a Taco Bell manager during a robbery attempt in Dallas.
The victim, 19-year-old Jennifer Soto, was pistol-whipped, shot and stabbed with a butcher knife. In the ruling, justices cited their decision nearly 5 months ago in the case of another Texas death row inmate, Robert Tennard, which opened the door to new challenges from several dozen condemned men in Texas who claim they have low IQs and were not given enough chance to present mitigating evidence to a jury. "There is no question that a jury might well have considered (Smith's) IQ scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the court wrote in Monday's decision. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justices, disagreed. The caseis Smith v. Texas, 04-5323. On the Net: The Smith v. Texas opinion is available at: wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/041115smith.pdf