Virginia Senate OKs Ban on Executing Retarded

RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Senate unanimously approved a bill Friday that would bar the execution of mentally retarded people convicted of capital crimes.

Senate Bill 497, altering the state’s law on the death penalty, passed, 40 to 0, without discussion. It must still be approved by the House of Delegates and signed by Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, before it can become law.

The legislation’s progress comes at a crucial time in the debate over executing the mentally retarded, defined in the Virginia bill as people with an IQ of less than 70 who are limited in key life skills. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a Virginia inmate’s argument that such executions violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The high court previously ruled in 1989 that community standards did not ban capital punishment for the retarded because only two states prohibited such executions.

But Virginia may now join a rapidly growing group of states that have changed their mind in the last decade. If the bill is signed into law, Virginia would become the 19th capital punishment state to bar such executions. Currently 19 other states allow execution of the retarded and 12 states do not have capital punishment.

“It’s absolutely remarkable,” said Wayne Smith, director of the Justice Project, which lobbies for changes in capital punishment laws. “It’s reflective of the changing attitudes about the death penalty.”

Legal experts said it is not clear what the Supreme Court will do with the Virginia case of Daryl Atkins if the bill becomes law. Last summer, the high court dropped a North Carolina case that it was going to use to decide the issue because that state banned executing the retarded. But this bill would not go into effect until 2003, well after the high court is slated to finish with the Atkins case.

In the House, a provision that would allow Virginia to prosecute someone for raping a spouse passed, 93 to 3, a day after a long and emotional debate on the issue.