therefore incompetent to stand trial, sent to a mental institution, and upon recovery, brought back for trial.
The key question in this social issue, according to Wilson (2001) is to determine whether or not any defendant, regardless of IQ, is competent to stand trial. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case involving a mentally retarded convict named Johnny Paul Penry who had been found competent to stand trial and who clearly understood that the murder he committed was wrong. However, the Court said that jurors in PenryÆs trial had not been properly alerted to the fact that they could consider retardation or childhood abuse in making a sentence determination. The Court also then said that the executions of the mentally retarded might at some point be found unconstitutional because they were cruel and unusual.
Penry was retried and again sentenced to death. The Supreme Court again overturned his sentence but did not finally rule on the rights of states under the Constitution to execute ret
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