Penry v. Lynaugh

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Penry v. Lynaugh

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued January 11, 1989
Decided June 26, 1989


Full case name:	Johnny Paul Penry v. Lynaugh, Director of the Texas Department of Corrections

Citations:	492 U.S. 302
Prior history:	Writ of habeas corpus challenging death sentence denied by United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 832 F.2d 915 (5th Cir. 1987); cert. granted, 487 U.S. 1233 (1988)

Subsequent history:	Subsequent death sentence affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and then the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; affirmed by the Fifth Circuit, 215 F.3d 504 (5th Cir. 2000); sentence vacated, 532 U.S. 782 (2001)

Holding

The Eighth Amendment does not forbid executing the mentally retarded; however, the three "special issues" a Texas jury is required to consider before imposing the death penalty did not adequately allow the jury in Penry's sentencing hearing to consider his alleged mental retardation as a mitigating factor.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy

Case opinions

Majority by: O'Connor
Concurrence/dissent by: Brennan
Joined by: Marshall
Concurrence/dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Blackmun
Concurrence/dissent by: Scalia
Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Kennedy

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. VIII

Overruled by

Tennard v. Dretke; Atkins v. Virginia

Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989), sanctioned the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders because the Court determined executing the mentally retarded was not "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment. However, because Texas law did not allow the jury to give adequate consideration as a mitigating factor to Penry's mental retardation at the sentencing phase of the trial, the Court remanded the case for further proceedings. Eventually, Penry was retried for capital murder, again sentenced to death, and again the Supreme Court ruled, in Penry v. Johnson, 532 U.S. 782 (2001), that the jury was not able to adequately consider Penry's mental retardation as a mitigating factor at the sentencing phase of the trial. Ultimately, Penry was spared the death penalty because of the Supreme Court's ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), which overruled the holding in Penry that the Eighth Amendment allowed execution of the mentally retarded.