Although the execution of intellectually disabled prisoners was banned by the US supreme court in 2002, Texas used the discretion allowed to individual states to come up with its own criteria of learning difficulties. These use the character of Lennie, the gentle simpleton who doesn’t know his own strength from Steinbeck’s 1937 novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, as a benchmark, with the court writing: ‘Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck’s Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt’.
“
| — |
“John Steinbeck’s son criticises Texas over use of fiction in death row cases” by Alison Flood What do you think? Should the implied universal understanding of a fictional character be used to help determine degree of learning disability? |
-
whineandbeer likes this
-
livefromthenypl posted this
