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Atkins, then 18, was convicted on his confession and on the testimony of his former co-defendant.Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority reversed course because of a change in public opinion since the high court last considered the question of executing the mentally retarded 13 years ago, in Bell&Ross Instrument BR-01 Airborne RS-14 Texas case of Johnny Paul Penry.At that time, only Georgia and Maryland had outlawed capital punishment for the mentally retarded, and the court voted 5-4 to uphold Penry's sentence, saying two states were not enough to indicate a national consensus. Today, 18 states prohibit such executions, and another 12 states allow no death penalty at all.

Although Penry lost that part of his 1989 appeal and remained on death row, his sentencing is now is being considered in the 1979 murder of Pamela Moseley Carpenter in Livingston. Penry has had three trials; the Supreme Court twice threw out convictions Bell&Ross Instrument BR-01 Airborne RS-15 him on other grounds.The Texas Legislature passed a bill banning the execution of mentally retarded criminals last year, but it was vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry, who wanted jurors to decide whether the person before them was mentally retarded and, if so, whether that precluded the death penalty.Perry's veto was mentioned in a footnote of the opinion, but the majority noted that the governor "did not express dissatisfaction with the principle of categorically Bell&Ross Instrument BR-01 Airborne RS-17 the mentally retarded from the death penalty. In fact, he stated: `We do not execute mentally retarded murderers today.' "

Stevens said it is not so much the number of states outlawing such executions that the court found significant, "but the consistency of the direction of the change.""The practice . . . has become unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it," Stevens Bell&Ross Instrument BR-03 RS-11.Stevens also said that executing mentally retarded killers neither appropriately punishes them nor serves as a deterrent to others. While mentally retarded defendants may know right from wrong, he said, they are more likely to act on impulse or to be influenced by others."Their deficiencies do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanction, but they do diminish their personal culpability," he wrote.