The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a stay Tuesday in the execution of Texas prisoner Robert James Campbell just hours before he was to be put to death. The court unanimously agreed that Campbell is “intellectually disabled... and is, therefore, constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty.” In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to execute prisoners with an IQ below 70. (Campbell’s is 68.) The execution was set to be the first one since Oklahoma botched the lethal injection of a prisoner two weeks ago. Earlier, Campbell’s lawyers tried and failed to stay the execution on the grounds that Texas would not disclose the source of the lethal-injection drug to be used.
Read it at The New York Times
