Penry v. Lynaugh

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1989 United States Supreme Court case

Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld the death penalty for mentally disabled offenders because the Court determined executing the intellectually disabled was not "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment .[1] However, because Texas law did not allow the jury to give adequate consideration as a mitigating factor to Johnny Paul Penry 's intellectual disability at the sentencing phase of his murder trial, the Court did remand the case for further proceedings.

Opinion of the Court

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The Court ruled that the execution of the mentally disabled does not violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

Concurring and dissenting opinions

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Subsequent developments

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Eventually, Penry was retried for capital murder, again sentenced to death, and again the Supreme Court ruled, in _Penry v. Johnson _,[2] that the jury was not able to adequately consider Penry's intellectual disability 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 _,[3] which, while not directly overruling the holding in "Penry I", did give considerable negative treatment to Penry on the basis that the Eighth Amendment allowed execution of mentally disabled people.