Penry v. Lynaugh

Supreme Court of United States
492 U.S. 302 (1989)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

In a capital case, the Eighth Amendment requires that the sentencing jury be able to consider and give full mitigating effect to all relevant evidence about the defendant's character, background, and the circumstances of the offense. However, the Eighth Amendment does not, at this time, establish a categorical prohibition against executing mentally retarded persons convicted of capital crimes.

Facts:

On October 25, 1979, Pamela Carpenter was raped, beaten, and fatally stabbed with scissors in her Texas home.
Before dying, Carpenter described her assailant, leading police to suspect Johnny Paul Penry.
Penry confessed to the crime in two separate statements.
Penry had been diagnosed with organic brain damage and mental retardation, with IQ scores between 50 and 63.
A psychologist testified that at age 22, Penry had the mental age of a 6.5-year-old and the social maturity of a 9 or 10-year-old.
Evidence was presented at trial detailing Penry's history of severe childhood abuse, including frequent beatings by his mother and being locked in his room for long periods without a toilet.

Procedural Posture:

Johnny Paul Penry was charged with capital murder in a Texas state court.
After a competency hearing, a jury found Penry competent to stand trial.
At trial, the jury rejected Penry's insanity defense and found him guilty of capital murder.
During the penalty phase, the jury answered 'yes' to three statutory 'special issues,' and the trial court sentenced Penry to death.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest court for criminal matters, affirmed the conviction and sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on direct appeal.
Penry filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court, which was denied.
Penry appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which affirmed the district court's denial of relief.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Fifth Circuit's decision.

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Issue:

1) Does the Texas capital sentencing statute, which requires a jury to answer three 'special issues,' unconstitutionally preclude the jury from giving full consideration and effect to mitigating evidence of a defendant's mental retardation and abused background in violation of the Eighth Amendment? 2) Does the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment categorically bar the execution of mentally retarded persons?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice O'Connor

Yes to part 1; No to part 2. A capital sentencing scheme must provide the jury with a vehicle to express its 'reasoned moral response' to all mitigating evidence; the Texas special issues failed to do so for Penry's evidence of mental retardation and abuse. However, there is currently insufficient evidence of a national consensus to declare that the execution of all mentally retarded persons is categorically unconstitutional. Reasoning for Part 1: The Court's precedents in Lockett v. Ohio and Eddings v. Oklahoma establish that a sentencer must not be precluded from considering and giving effect to any mitigating evidence. In Penry's case, his evidence of mental retardation and abuse was a 'two-edged sword.' It could suggest he was less morally culpable, but it could also lead a jury to answer 'yes' to the special issue on future dangerousness. The special issues on deliberateness and provocation also did not allow the jury to give full mitigating effect to this evidence. Without specific instructions, the jury had no way to consider this evidence as a basis for a sentence less than death, thus violating the Eighth Amendment's requirement for individualized sentencing. Reasoning for Part 2: While the common law prohibited punishing 'idiots,' and there is an emerging trend against executing the mentally retarded, the evidence does not yet demonstrate a national consensus. At the time of the decision, only two states with the death penalty (and the federal government in a specific drug law) had banned the execution of the mentally retarded. This is insufficient objective evidence of the 'evolving standards of decency' required to create a categorical Eighth Amendment ban. Mental retardation is a mitigating factor to be considered in individual cases, but it does not automatically exempt a person from the death penalty.

Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Brennan

Yes to part 1; Yes to part 2. The Court correctly finds the jury instructions were unconstitutional, but it errs in holding that the Eighth Amendment permits the execution of mentally retarded offenders. The Eighth Amendment prohibits executing offenders who, due to mental retardation, lack the full degree of moral culpability that is a prerequisite for the death penalty. Killing mentally retarded offenders serves no valid retributive or deterrent purpose because their disability makes them less blameworthy and less able to be deterred by the threat of capital punishment. Therefore, their execution is always a 'purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering.'

Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Stevens

Yes to part 1; Yes to part 2. The Court's reasoning regarding the mitigating evidence is correct. Furthermore, the arguments presented regarding the reduced culpability of mentally retarded individuals compel the conclusion that their execution is unconstitutional. The judgment should be reversed in its entirety.

Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Scalia

No to part 1; No to part 2. The Texas special issues framework, upheld in Jurek v. Texas, properly channels the jury's discretion and allows for consideration of mitigating evidence as it relates to those issues. The Constitution does not require that a jury be allowed to give unfocused, sympathetic effect to mitigating evidence beyond the structure provided by law. The Court's holding on this point wrongly returns to the unbridled discretion condemned in Furman v. Georgia. The Court is correct that there is no categorical ban on executing the mentally retarded, as there is no societal consensus against it.

Analysis:

This case significantly clarified the 'as applied' dimension of Eighth Amendment capital jurisprudence, affirming that a facially valid sentencing statute can be unconstitutional in its application to a specific defendant's mitigating evidence. It established that the sentencer must have a meaningful vehicle to not just hear, but actually give effect to, mitigating factors. The decision opened the door for numerous challenges to the Texas special issues framework. While the Court declined to establish a categorical ban on executing the mentally retarded, its analysis set the stage for the issue to be revisited, which ultimately occurred in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), where this part of the Penry holding was overturned.

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