Penry v. Lynaugh
- Decided
- June 26, 1989
- Docket
- 87-6177
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 2,957 timesOverruled (verified)Overruled by Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) (verified: Constitution Annotated, Library of Congress) · Atkins v. Virginia
What later courts said
- holding that the Eighth Amendment does not bar the execution of prisoners who were mentally retarded at the time they committed their offenses — Commonwealth v. Baumhammers (2008)
- holding that mental retardation did not render defendant's confession involuntary absent coercive tactics by police — Raymond James Jones v. Gary Johnson, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division (1999)
- holding that the trier of fact must be allowed to consider and give effect to all relevant mitigating evidence — Gerald Ross Pizzuto, Jr. v. A.J. Arave, Warden (2002)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV-C.
In this case, we must decide whether petitioner, Johnny Paul Penry, was sentenced to death in violation of the Eighth Amendment because the jury was not instructed that it could consider and give effect to his mitigating evidence in imposing its sentence. We must also decide whether the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits Penry’s execution because he is mentally retarded.
H-I On the morning of October 25, 1979, Pamela Carpenter was brutally raped, beaten, and stabbed with a pair of scissors in her home in Livingston, Texas. She died a few hours later in the course of emergency treatment. Before she died, she described her assailant. Her description led two local sheriff’s deputies to suspect Penry, who had recently been released on parole after conviction on another rape charge. Penry subsequently gave two statements confessing to the crime and was charged with capital murder.
Statutes cited
Cite this
Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989)Read the full opinion
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