Texas just executed Marvin Wilson - a man with an IQ of 61. Even
though it’s been a decade since the US Supreme Court ruled that
“the mentally retarded should be categorically excluded from
execution,” Texas looked to literature for an excuse to keep
killing. The high court had left it up to states to use
professional standards to define mental retardation, but instead
Texas chose as its standard the fictional character, Lennie,
from John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck’s son told
Huffington Post he was “certain” that if his father were alive,
“he would be deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in
this way.” According to a NY Times editorial, Texas has used the
"Lennie" standard to reject claims of mental retardation in now
11 death penalty cases. As guilty as Texas, is the Supreme Court
for not intervening to stop Wilson’s execution. Tell the Court
to bar all Texas executions until it develops professional
standards for mental retardation. We, the undersigned, demand
that this senseless killin