Two Days Before a Dallas Man's Scheduled to Die, Lawyers Claim He's "Mentally Retarded"

• i know him as a friend he is not retarded he is just miss understood

• Scott, get back to me when you get over the schoolyard name-calling thing. Odd how you only seem to do that at night.

• RoB, if you would like to make a cost benefit assessment supporting the war in Iraq, go ahead. As far as gutting an appeals process which has found many innocents on death row, go ahead. Clearly, it has spared an innocent life. I think the cost benefit analysis works well. Further, consider that the Health bill before Congress--again, not having seen the particulars I don't necessarily support this present bill, but regardless bacon brain, one tenth of the Pentagon budget would pay for this health bill. We lost this much CASH in Iraq. Consider, you build a bomb, what do you get, one engineer, two assembly jobs and a couple of soldiers not to mention the reconstruction cost for deploying the bomb. Or, we could throw those same dollars to health care, we get a couple of Doctors, a couple of nurses, a couple of clerks. Not to mention the benefits of health for the patient. The income multiplier for non military domestic spending is far higher than military spending, but RoB, facts sadly, nor analogy your strong suit.

• Scott, I find your Jekyll and Hyde routine to be puzzling and a little disturbing, but anyway... People tend to use high cost as an excuse to nuke things that they are opposed to, but ignore expense when it comes to things that they support. For example, is there such a thing as spending too much money on <i>appealing</i> death penalty cases? <i>I mean universal healthcare at least achieves something even if it proves to be a total disaster.</i> What would your reaction be if someone made the equivalent statement about, say, the war in Iraq?

• Anonymous, the problem with dismissing the "super due process" which I referenced before is the fact that those last minute appeals have uncovered some real miscarriages of justice. Should we just not ask any questions, does that really ease your conscience? To say it costs 5 times more to execute a prisoner as it does to incarcerate them for life, you admit is so. Please, don't call facts lies. I'm not willing to concede absurdity as an acceptable argument.

• <i>Scott says: RoB, add to that that your proposal, the status quo is FIVE times more expensive.</i> Quit peddling that lie. The only reason it's more expensive is because of the lawyers who drag out appeals for years even though they know their client is guilty and the appeals will fail.

• RoB, add to that that your proposal, the status quo is FIVE times more expensive. These last minute acquittals certainly don't lead us to brazenly curtail the "super due process" death penalty cases carry. So, again, what gain, and what cost? No provable deterrent in this show of the ultimate punishment versus quintupled costs, one in ten will be INNOCENT. Great policy. RoB, there are so many reasons you should be anti-death penalty it's silly. Where, how does it work? Why would we quintuple our costs? I mean universal healthcare at least achieves something even if it proves to be a total disaster.

• Religion, I appreciate your imminently worthwhile counter-arguments. The problem lies with the fact that, unlike the inevitable mistakes that occur during hospital stays and the deaths and injuries that arise from the operation of motor vehicles, there is a completely legitimate alternative to capital punishment that reduces its error rate to zero. Now, many will say that putting a truly guilty defendant to death provides benefits that justify murdering innocent defendants. So, how much are those alleged benefits genuinely worth in terms of blood?

• Diana, leaving aside david and eattrn's flame-bait, you have to admit that there are many things in life where we acknowledge that there will be or may be some innocent victims, as a tradeoff for some benefit in the majority of cases. For example, people die due to mistakes in hospitals, but we don't say that we're going to shut down hospitals unless they're error-free. People die in car crashes but we don't say that autos will be banned until we can guarantee the death rate will be zero. Of course, if you start from the position that capital punishment is fundamentally useless, misguided, or immoral, then obviously you're not going to accept any error rate at all. Asking someone who supports capital punishment, "what error rate in capital punishment is acceptable" is like asking a doctor, "what is an acceptable number of deaths from surgery or adverse reactions to medication each year?"

• <blockquote>I would accept a 10% error rate gladly and 20% wouldn't hurt my feelings.</blockquote>Let me guess, your feelings are informed by your fact-free assumption that you would <i>never</i> be "be in a position that [you] might be blamed". However, you get credit for being honest about your willingness to have the State murder innocent people. Does you hard-nosed honesty extend to any of those innocents being any of your family or friends? Meanwhile, david is willing to murder potentially up to 30,000 Americans (based on current population) for the "benefit" of capital punishment as opposed to life without parole.

• knottygirl is cracking me up!

• eattrn, troll much?

• To keep worthless non-productive people alive for fear that one that is innocent might somehow be killed is ridiculous. The chance of executing an innocent person now and then should put the fear into people not to be in a position that they might be blamed. I would accept a 10% error rate gladly and 20% wouldn't hurt my feelings.

• how about 0.01% you schmuck you diana!

• I retired from the Richardson Police Department in 2007 with a few months more than 26 years of service on top of my four years as a Dallas reserve officer. As I've noted to many people over the years, there are two questions, in my mind, that death penalty proponents need to answer to be credible. One is whether or not they actually believe that a human criminal justice system that employs capital punishment can do so without <b>ever</b> killing someone who is innocent of the crime that they're being executed for. Having been within the process for three decades, my answer to that is "absolutely not". The second question is, "If you accept that, despite all safeguards, innocents will be killed by the State, then what is the numerical value that corresponds to an acceptable error rate?" I think only the incurably naive would think the error rate is zero. Every reasonable person would object to an error rate of 100%. Therefore, the value must lie between 0 and 100. Where is it? How many innocent people must die for the alleged benefit of capital punishment?

• The funny thing is, if he would've said the same thing about TO, his comment would've been deleted, even if it wasn't nearly as vicious. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask.

• David Finn says: I guess the previous posters forgot to add that you can't hide evidence at trial and expect to get a high-five... ******** Actually, we were discussing the issue of mental retardation as a mitigating factor. Hiding evidence didn't come into this discussion at all (perhaps the evil Observer staff decided to hide that part of the motion until you called them on it). Anyway, shouldn't you be spending your time working on this case? Or are you trying to lay the groundwork for an ineffective assistance of counsel appeal down the road if the Brady violation and mental retardation arguments fail? "May it please the court, my lawyer spent valuable time commenting on Unfair Park instead of working on my case...."

• Scott- hard to follow your bouncing ball of logic. Lessie..... gay people are really right wing patriotic nutjobs who relish killing innocent people who have been found guilty of murder? Wait wait, I get it now, the gays- you know the ones who are ruining marriage for everyone else and also possibly responsible for clubbing baby seals- are no better or different than retarded murderers? I mean, shit we gays are already child molesters and bestiality lovers but now we're retarded too?

• "Anonymous, I think it's shocking that you believe that anyone with an IQ under 70 should be allowed to murder anyone they want with impunity, and that Texas should be given back to Mexico." All I'm saying is that it's easy to say "Hey, the law's the law" when you agree with it, and not so easy to say that when you disagree with the law. And it's hardly allowing someone to murder with impunity if life in prison is the highest punishment for a particular class of person (just like 17 year-olds can't murder with impunity, but they also can't be put to death under the law of the land). Personally, I don't mind illegal immigrants being deported, but I also don't mind the Supreme Court deciding that some people aren't eligible for the death penalty. I'm pro-law. I don't pick and choose.

• Gee, I don't give a shit about this guy who either murdered someone or perhaps others were there, hell I don't know. I doubt Mr Finn was representing him initially, perhaps his first council wasn't as on the ball. He probably didn't have much to pay. Whatever, let's assume this guy who ain't too damn smart, retardation is a category for a low IQ test. Even if he did kill some poor guy, even if he didn't and is a cold sociopath, (Perhaps the DA that hid this little detail is a sociopath) IT WILL COST 5 TIMES MORE MONEY TO KILL HIM THAN TO LET HIM ROT IN JAIL. Don't know why you "macho" death penalty advocates are so supportive of expensive, showy displays but there you are. Of course, there is always the funny fact that many of the most patriotic right wingers are closet homosexuals. Perhaps through these expensive demonstrations you get to channel your inner Barbara Streisand without threatening your little homophobic faggot hearts. Or, is it Christian absolutism that guides you to waste such money for naught?

• Further details concerning the <em>Brady</em> violation to which Finn refers can be found in this updated item: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/07/lets_get_back_to_kims.php

• Dear Juror, You didn't hear that the star witness confessed to the police that the day after the murder he went to a pawn shop and sold a cross, did you? No, because it was never given to the defense. And you didn't hear that he denied being involved in any of it did you? No, because it was never given to the defense. And you never heard that he would be "very suprised" if it turned out that he wasn't being truthful did you? No, because it was never given to the defense. So, dear juror, who pulled the trigger? Flip a coin my friend. Play by the rules or get burned.

• Anonymous, I think it's shocking that you believe that anyone with an IQ under 70 should be allowed to murder anyone they want with impunity, and that Texas should be given back to Mexico. Seriously, is your reading comprehension really that bad, or are you just making stuff up because you don't have a good reply to what people actually wrote?

• I guess the previous posters forgot to add that you can't hide evidence at trial and expect to get a high-five... It's called a Brady violation and, yes, it's a big deal. You're on trial for your life and the prosecution "fails" to disclose that what your "star" witness told the jury is a 180 from his first written, signed, statement to the police. oops. and you wonder why there are so many exonerations in Dallas County. geez

• I was a Juror on this exact case and let me tell you he is not retarded in any way. He is a sociopath. If his family thought he was retarded they would have certainly brought this up at trial. His father got on the stand and they asked about a history of mental illness. All the father could say is that he suffered from low self esteem and was depressed. You would think he would have mentioned that my son isn't capable of understanding what he has done would have come up. Roderick had a very long rap sheet that shows a regularly escalating path of destruction. I'll be his lawyer didn't mention that Newton got off from a previous murder because his girlfriend gave him an alibi. By the way, it was the same alibi she used in our trial and the prosecution caught her in a lie on the stand. She wasn't at all believable. He was smart enough to pawn the gun and the cross he stole. He took the police on a high speed chase and managed to evade them quite well. He drove Jesus Montoya to a field and shot him twice in cold blood and left him there to die. Those aren't the acts of someone that doesn't know what they did. His lawyer also isn't going to mention that he regularly got into fights while awaiting trial. I really did start off believing in his innocence and it was extremely hard to find a man guilty of such a horrible crime. But after 9 years, I believe that it was and is the right decision to make.

• "And what blog have you been reading, Anonymous?" This one (though the Irving city council story is further back than I remembered).

• And what blog have you been reading, Anonymous?

• I'm retarded and I love bunnies and I don't want to die! And I categorically disparage the use of "retard" as a schoolyard taunt and "retarded" to denote an incompetent bureaucrat, a short-sighted sports coach, or a sullen customer-service professional. How the fuck do you think that makes me feel? People, I'm occasionally childlike.

• Geez. Just a few stories ago, all the comments were "Hey, we just support the law. So deport the Mexicans" and now everybody's all "Fuck the law. Execute the retarded."

• I am anti-death penalty, but it really irritates me that people get so upset that a criminal with a low IQ doesn't get special treatment. The victim in this case isn't any less dead because the criminal was (perhaps) mentally retarded. The time for special treatment was early on, with vocational training, counseling, occupational therapy to help this man find a place in society. Either that never happened, or it failed. I doubt that Mr. Montoya's family cares why Newton robbed and murdered their loved one. Again, I'm against the death penalty for everyone, whether it's the sweet guys who love bunnies, or the really mean guys who snarl all the time. I just don't see what difference it makes once someone has committed a heinous crime what his/her disposition, appearance, and, yes, his/her IQ is.

• sorry but Newton doesn't look like your "normal" mentally retarded person. and why does it take until 48 hours before the execution date for the attorneys to file their petition.. wonder what they will file if this petition fails.

• I do agree with "Jay" above. I mean, c'mon, Forrest Gump had an IQ of 70 and he still managed to only kill people in Vietnam on orders. I guess that's the thing that irritates me the most about the low IQ/mental retardation issue: nobody ever calls into question the low IQ/poor mental performance of a criminal who manages to get himself to the point to commit a heinous crime (having the capacity to find a gun and learn how to use it) just that, "oh he's retarded, he shouldn't be put to death." Would not a retarded person shoot themselves in foot instead? I don't get it- there are thousands of people in the world with Downs Syndrome, for example, who aren't out committing random murders, so where's the outrage that some killer gets off for being "mentally retarded". BTW, most people who manage to survive on this planet could probably be considered "mentally retarded". Crappy parenting notwithstanding, we all have choices that we make. And yeah, this idiot chose to kill somebody, doesn't mean he wasn't "aware" of his actions, he just didn't care about consequences. When is the legal community gonna differentiate between not knowing something is wrong and not caring that something is wrong? And if someone doesn't have a conscience (i.e., a sociopath that doesn't value human life, thus not caring about wrong) then why do we want to spare them? They obviously need to be eliminated from the gene pool.

• Read Newton's history here: http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=3061 Excerpts: <i>In November 1993, when one of Newton�s teachers confronted him for sleeping in class, Newton attacked him, forcing the teacher to physically remove Newton from the classroom and call police. Newton later telephoned the teacher and threatened to �eliminate� him.</i> [...] <i>Newton�s probation officer testified that Newton did not attend his first probation meeting because eight days after being placed on probation, he was arrested again for a burglary of a vehicle.</i> btw, where did Megan Feldman go? She used to be the go-to person for DO "that poor convict" articles, but I haven't seen her name in a while.

• <b> Can defendants with mental retardation successfully fake their performance on a test of competence to stand trial? Caroline Everington, Ph.D. *, Heidi Notario-Smull, M.A., Mel L. Horton, Ed.D.</b> <i>The purpose of this study was to determine whether criminal defendants with mental retardation can feign poor performance on a test of competence to stand trial. Four groups of adjudicated criminal defendants were given a test of competence to stand trial. In the experimental condition, defendants with mental retardation (MR) and mentally typical defendants (non-MR) were given instructions to fake their performance on the test. In the control, MR defendants and non-MR defendants took the test under standard conditions. <b>The results indicated that both the MR and non-MR fakers scored significantly lower than the MR and non-MR controls. There was no significant difference in the scores of the MR and non-MR fakers.</b> The results suggest that defendants with mental retardation may be able to successfully fake their performance in certain circumstances. Implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright � 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.</i>

• It seems like a lot of these guys [ultra violent offenders] exhibit childlike behavior.... Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy and even Manson, just to name a few [of the worst]. Not sure what it means but it's clear none of them are/were retarded. They're just violent. Potassium Chloride seems to fix the problem. Carry on.

• smarterthanthat, no, we are not talking about robbing a random victim and then shooting them repeatedly until they are dead for no reason at all.

• where are the study results of retardation and premeditated murder? he may have an IQ of 61, but for one unfortunate day, his IQ was 150.

• So you guys are arguing that as a society we should behave the same way a man with an IQ of 61 behaved? Hm, I understand the pro-death penalty crowd much better now.

• It is a major problem that lawyers wait until the very very very last minute to file the petition that they'v had years to file. These type of games by lawyers brng nothing but discredit to the legal profession.

• I don't care if he's blind, deaf, dumb or what color his skin is; if said man is capable of said acts on his own accord there is no place for him in society. I'm also ashamed of my countryman; if you stood up this much for the betterment of society instead of murderers we might be progressing as a race. But with all the lawyers and politicians in America with well-developed ego's, we have a long way to go.

• Anonymous: Maybe it would be unusual punishment if he was driven around, asked to remove his cross, and then shot by someone with mental retardation.

• Is it cruel and unusual punishment if the punishment/sentence is the same as the crime committed?

• Shocking! 9 years after conviction and suddenly he is retarded. Don't think so

TotalComments: 43