US Supreme Court stops execution of mentally disabled man

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court stopped an execution because a Texas jury had not taken into account a convicted murderer's low intelligence, as well his age at the time of the killing.

The 7-2 decision followed others overturning decisions in Texas courts, which have sent the largest number of convicts to their deaths, 22 of 58 in the United States so far this year.

LaRoyce Smith was found guilty of killing in January 1991 a former co-worker in a Dallas fast-food restaurant that he was trying to burglarize. His appeal was rejected, but heard by the Supreme Court.

"There is no question that a jury might well have considered petitioner's (intelligence) scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the justices wrote in the decision released Monday.
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Justices Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) and Clarence Thomas (news - web sites), considered the most conservative on the bench, dissented without comment.

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