The Utah Legislature has unanimously approved a bill...

The Utah Legislature has unanimously approved a bill that would bring Utah's death penalty law in line with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The Utah House voted 69-0 to change the current law. That followed an earlier unanimous vote in the Senate. The bill will now go to the governor, who is expected to sign it into law.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the case of Atkins v. Virginia that executing mentally retarded murderers is unconstitutionally cruel. However, the court left it to the states to define mental retardation.
The bill provides that definition, sets parameters regarding when it can be raised as a defense and determines who makes the finding during the prosecution of a case.
Using school records, IQ tests and psychological evaluations, a judge would decide if a defendant had "significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning" or "significant deficiencies in adaptive functioning" in areas of reasoning or impulse control that existed prior to age 22.