In the process of
promoting fairness and equality for criminals, there are legal rules relating
to the competence of defendants with mental retardation to help in their
defense.
The person who is mentally retarded and
his or her mental condition is not able to understand anything like any object
of the procedure against him so to help in analyzing his defense cannot be
subjected to trial and defense attorney must have clinical evaluation along
with him or his as proof all these perspectives is noticed in 1975 in supreme
court.
The other of this act
states that whenever there is accurate doubt arises related to the competence
of the defendant the judge can hold a hearing that is his obligation in any
case if the defense requested or not. The obligations can be arises at every
stage of proceedings. Defendant can be live in supervision of law to sure that
he or she is mentally retarded or not? Two problems must be analyzed very
deeply first is adequate protection must be provided to the interest of
defendants who are mentally retarded second one is related to latent ambiguity
which is designed to raised unsolved question related to the legal significance
in some cases of mental retardation (Bonnie).
Example of Research a crime where the
defendant's capacity to commit the crime is an issue
Pamela Carpenter was brutally raped,
stabbed with scissors and beat and killed john Paul Penry in Texas state court
in her home in Livingstone. After consultation
with a psychologist, it was proved that he was mild to moderately mentally retarded
because at the age of 22 he can just understand knowledge just according to the
child of class six. Penry shows pieces of evidence regards to its psychological
problem in his defense which claims that he is suffering from a combination of
organic damage of the brain and have moderate retardation present in their
brain due to which there impulse control was so poor and he can't learn
something from his or anybody experiences. According to the statement of Penry
mother he can’t learn something from their school life and attain good grade in
his studies and according to the statement of sister of Penry which states that
his mother beat him with belt over the head consistently when he was a child
and Penry was locked into the room without having toilet in the room for a long
period of time. Penry was rusticated from the schools again and again in the
last father removed him from the schools but he was just 12 years of his age.
Their aunt tries too hard to teach Penry that he had to write his name but he
can't do so. Except for all these two psychiatrists from a well-reputed
hospital provides evidence that he is mentally retarded and he has antisocial
personality and he is also legally sane so due to all these circumstances
juries found him guilty. (Freckelton,
2016)
Conclusion of Research a crime where the
defendant's capacity to commit the crime is an issue
So after study all these aspects it is
concluded that mentally retarded criminals are the criminals where the
defendant capacity to commit the crime is an issue because they are not fully
aware of what they are doing but jury can find them guilty if there are proper
evidences are available with the consultations of psychiatrists and history of
the criminal.
References of Research a crime where the
defendant's capacity to commit the crime is an issue
Bonnie, R. J. (n.d.). The Competence of Criminal
Defendants with. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 81(3 ).
Freckelton, I. (2016). Offenders with Intellectual and
Developmental Disabilities: Sentencing Challenges after the Abolition of
Execution in the United States. 321-335.