Recent US Supreme Court precedent has targeted specific classifications of criminal defendants for whom capital punishment is overly severe. Recent cases hold that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment for a criminal defendant who was a juvenile when the crime was committed, 1who is mentally ill, 2 or has an intellectual disability 3 at the time of the scheduled execution. Although states vary in their classifications of juveniles (discussed in detail in Criminal Defenses, Part 2, the Eighth Amendment prohibits capital punishment for an individual who was under eighteen years of age when he or she committed criminal homicide. Mental illness could cover a variety of disorders, but the US Supreme Court has held that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to a determination of sanity before execution. 4 Intellectual disability is distinct from mental illness and is defined by the US Supreme Court as a substantial intellectual impairment that impacts everyday life, and was present at the defendant’s birth or during childhood. 5 However, this standard is broad, so states vary in their legislative definitions of this classification. 6
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