Amnesty International executive director Steven Hawkins said: "This decision does not change the fact that regardless of the method of execution, the death penalty is broken beyond repair.
The debate has even made a surprise entrance into the presidential race, where Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who has been an outspoken supporter of the penalty, postponed the execution of a convicted killer earlier this month to allow DNA testing.
It was a chilling flesh-and-blood reminder of the greatest fear of opponents and supporters of the death penalty -- the execution of the innocent.
By contrast, only two states that had a death penalty barred execution of the mentally retarded in 1989, when the Supreme Court in a separate decision rejected a challenge to capital punishment for that category of defendants.
But even many death penalty states bar the execution of the mentally retarded because they deem it barbaric to impose the ultimate penalty on individuals whose understanding, and thus moral culpability, is extremely limited.
Of the 38 states that now have a death penalty, 18 forbid execution of the retarded.
The mail in response to our article on mental retardation and the death penalty strongly opposed execution of the retarded.
When the court last considered the issue 12 years ago, only two of the 38 death penalty states barred execution of the retarded.
In fact, the number of states that have the death penalty but prohibit execution of the mentally retarded has grown to 18 today from only two in 1989.
