JUSTICE?

Two Low IQ Inmates Executed

Lawyers claim they were mentally disabled.

Two prisoners whose lawyers claimed they were intellectually disabled were executed last night and early this morning in Georgia and Missouri, respectively. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon denied clemency for Paul Goodwin, who was convicted of killing a 63-year-old widow with a ball-peen hammer in 1998. He was the tenth execution this year in the state, the most in its history. His attorneys argued that his IQ of 73, well below average, meant the crime was committed “by a man with the mental capability of a child, not an adult.” In Georgia, Robert Wayne Holsey, whose IQ was 70, had claimed he had not been given the opportunity to demonstrate his disability during his trial, and that his attorney was an alcoholic who consumed a quart of vodka one day at the trial. He murdered a sheriff’s deputy after a convenience-store robbery.