Washington--The US Supreme Court will on Monday consider whether a man deemed mentally handicapped should be sentenced to death.
In a 2002 decision -- "Atkins versus Virginia" -- the Supreme Court forbade the execution of people with intellectual disabilities.
Then, the court found that such an execution would amount to the "cruel and unusual punishment" banned by the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
But it left it up to individual US states to determine what constitutes a mental handicap.
The case the top court is to hear Monday involves Kevan Brumfield, who was sentenced to death by a state court for killing a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1993.
Though the issue of the suspect's mental capacity did come up at trial, the law did not prohibit mentally disabled people to be sentenced to death at the time.
After the Supreme Court's ruling in 2002, Brumfield's lawyers argued he should be spared death due to intellectual disability.
He appealed for a hearing and funding to conduct an intelligence assessment, but the Louisiana state court denied his request, saying Brumfield's IQ was 75 and therefore he was not considered mentally disabled.
An IQ of lower than 70 is considered an intellectual disability, according to the Supreme Court's 2002 decision.
But a US federal court later approved the intelligence assessment and concluded that Brumfield was in fact intellectually handicapped and therefore ineligible for execution.
The New Orleans Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, then ruled that the state's original sentence should be upheld and that Brumfield should remain on death row.
Capital punishment sentences normally fall under the purvey of state law, and this case could determine whether the federal courts can block a state's death sentence if the punishment is considered "unreasonable."
"If the state court does not give adequate process by denying hearing and funding, you've been unreasonable and you're not entitled to deference," said one of Brumfield's lawyers, Amir Ali.
If the Supreme Court rules that a federal court cannot overturn a state court's sentence, it would be a historic decision.
AFP
