More legal reinforcement for the notion that if you had an awful childhood, people should cut you slack when you commit murder:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided with a convicted killer in an important test of legal standards for death penalty cases, ruling Thursday that inexperienced lawyers failed their client at trial.

The court, by a vote of 7 to 2, threw out the death sentence of Kevin Wiggins, a borderline retarded man convicted of drowning an elderly Maryland woman who employed him as a handyman. The jury that sent Wiggins to death row never heard that he was repeatedly raped, beaten and denied food as a child, or that his mother burned his hands on the stove as punishment.

If jurors knew the ghastly details, they might well have chosen a life sentence for Wiggins, the high court majority said. Wiggins’ conviction stands, but the court ordered a new sentencing hearing.

I do not get it. I do not understand the connection between being an abused child and receiving a lesser punishment for taking the life of another human being.

He didn’t know better? I might – might, mind you – buy that on the basis of his mild mental retardation. I would certainly have reservations about imposing the death penalty on a defendant whose attorneys had no experience in handling cases of this nature – as occurred here.

But to extrapolate that a person’s horrifying childhood lessens his responsibility for horrible conduct as an adult? I am appalled.

So, as is so often the case with SCOTUS, the warm and fuzzy feelings I felt toward them earlier today when learning of their decision on gay rights has vanished yet again into my standard contempt for nine minds which do not seem to share one ounce of good logic between them.

Thursday, June 26th, 2003, 12:23 pm   |   Law Bites  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.