US authorities execute two mentally disabled prisoners in one week

An American man with an IQ so low as to be classed as technically disabled was executed by the state of Texas last night, after another mentally disabled prisoner was killed on Tuesday night.

Robert Ladd, who was sentenced to death for bludgeoning a mentally disabled woman to death in her flat in 1996, died by lethal injection at 7.02pm, 27 minutes after the dose was administered.

In his final minutes Ladd, who has an IQ of 67, apologies to the family of the woman he killed, before telling the warden: “Let’s ride.”

As the lethal drug dose took effect, 57-year-old Ladd is said to have told wardens: “Stings my arm, man.”

On Tuesday another mentally impaired inmate, Warren Hill, who has an IQ of 70, was executed in Georgia after last-minute appeals also failed.

Hill, 54, sentenced to death in 1990 after killing fellow prison inmate Joseph Handspike while serving a life sentence for the murder of girlfriend Myra Wright, was declined an appeal based on mental disability after a court ruled that his life showed example of “self-sufficiency”.

He declined to make a final statement and was pronounced dead at 7:55pm local time.

Hill's lawyer, Brian Kamer, condemned the state’s decision, claiming that Hill possessed the mental age of a “young boy,” and described the execution as an “abomination.”

Despite the US Supreme Court’s ruling in 2002 that executing disabled prisoners violated the US constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, individual states retain the leeway to determine the standards.

If they do the crime they should do the time

The Land of the Free is as wedded to a barbaric justice system as the Islamic caliphate.

If you read the article you'll see that they had served between 17 and 24 years of "time" and were only now being executed. A trite clichéd response is facile and, frankly, silly.

The issue is whether they understood what they were doing and whether they were legally competent. Not many people would think they were, I suspect.

The Land of the Free is as wedded to a barbaric justice system as the Islamic caliphate.

It doesn't matter if they "understood" what they were doing, or if they were "legally competent" which sounds like stupid lawyer speak, they are responsible for their own actions.

That's not really a true comparison though. The US isn't killing people for leaving Christianity or being gay etc.

The death penalty of any kind by governments is totally wrong and against human rights. The killing of those who have extremely low IQs is even worse.

Both implement the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder. One may go further than the other but that isn't very relevant.

I'm not going to agree with your attempt to say that the United States and an Islamic Caliphate are morally equivalent.

I don't see how, in the context of their justice systems' use of the death penalty, you can disagree. We agree that the death penalty is wrong; they both use it; they are both barbaric.

Plenty of people like me will agree with you that the death penalty is barbaric.

considering the US's incarceration rates they need to get rid of criminals in order to make space for new ones.

That's just an argument to execute all criminals because it is cheap.

Yes, and? It's financially viable, and some state governments have decided it's not morally wrong to execute criminals. I'm not saying it's correct, but it's the reality.

So what is your point? That cost-effectiveness should be the deciding factor for dealing with criminals?

Yes, and? It's financially viable, and some state governments have decided it's not morally wrong to execute criminals. I'm not saying it's correct, but it's the reality.

So what is your point? That cost-effectiveness should be the deciding factor for dealing with criminals?

Why is their mental state relevant to their crime? If, in a trial, it can be proved that the defendant was mentally disabled/insane to the point where they had no control of their actions whatsoever then fair enough, but if the defendant is found guilty of murder despite their mental state I don't think more sympatyhy should be given simply because they're deemed mentally disabled. I can't say I agree with the death penalty, but considering the US's incarceration rates they need to get rid of criminals in order to make space for new ones. They could probably reduce the rate by stopping the war on drugs but that'll happen when hell freezes over.

the US has such a high incarceration rate that they might even have to kill criminals to make space for more criminals. I never stated or even implied that cost-effectiveness is the deciding factor.