But for a last minute stay by the U.S. Supreme Court another Texas death-row inmate would have been executed on Thursday, November 16, 2000. John Paul Penry, age 44, has by no means escaped his death sentence. The Court has, however, granted the stay so that it may further review the facts of the case. A death-row matter from Texas is common news at this time in our history, but the case of John Paul Penry is certainly not commonplace. John Paul Penry is said to be mentally retarded.
Penry was set to become 38th Texas inmate to be executed this year -- the highest number by any state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. It was to be the third execution in as many nights in Texas. Penry was sentenced to death for raping and fatally stabbing and beating 22-year-old East Texas housewife Pamela Moseley Carpenter in 1979. Pamela Mosely Carpenter was the sister of former Washington Redskins’ kicker Mark Mosely. Penry was on parole at the time for a rape.
His case received world-wide attention because of his alleged mental retardation. Penry's lawyers described him as having an IQ of 50 and the mental age of a 7-year-old. Prosecutors assert Penry is not retarded. Texas Attorney General John Cornyn said Penry is "a schemer, a planner and can be purposefully deceptive."
For the past 20 years, Penry's case has been debated nationally and throughout the world. The European Union, anti-death penalty groups and the American Bar Association, along with advocates for the mentally retarded, had lobbied Texas officials to halt the punishment. The question becomes: Is it cruel and unusual punishment to execute a mentally retarded person?
About 23 states have answered the question in the negative. They allow the execution of retarded killers, although some are considering laws prohibiting the practice. In August, again in Texas, Oliver David Cruz, whose IQ tested as low as 63, received lethal injection for a 1988 murder in San Antonio. Penry had two competency trials and two murder trials. His second capital murder trial came after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his original death sentence in a landmark ruling.
Penry was charged with capital murder in Texas state court. He was found competent to stand trial, although a psychologist testified that he was mildly to moderately retarded and had the mental age of a 6 1/2-year-old. At the guilt-innocence phase of the trial, Penry raised an insanity defense and presented psychiatric testimony that he suffered from a combination of organic brain damage and moderate retardation which resulted in poor impulse control and an inability to learn from experience. His evidence also indicated that he had been abused as a child.
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