Capital Punishment for the Mentally Retarded
             In my opinion, people who have mental retardation should not be executed for the crimes that they are accused of. There are many reasons for my answer.
             By definition capital punishment is an execution of a criminal who is convicted of a crime, otherwise known as punishment by death. It can be carried out in various different ways: lethal injection, electrocution and gas chamber, only to name a few. By definition mental retardation is a lifelong condition of impaired or incomplete mental development. A person is considered to be mentally retarded if he or she has the following three specific characteristics.
             The first characteristic is a significantly sub average intellectual functioning, or an intellectual functioning level (IQ) below 75 . The average IQ in the United States is considered to be a 100; therefore an IQ of 75 and below is significantly below the average American IQ. For a grown adult to have an IQ of 75 or below is equivalent to that of a child in the third grade.
             The second characteristic that defines a person who is mentally retarded is a concurrent and related limitation in two or more adaptive skill areas. This means that a person with mental retardation cannot communicate to the level of an average person; they do not have adept social skills; they have no self-direction; and they cannot work for a living. Basically they cannot live on their own because they are not only mentally, but physically as well, unable to care for themselves. They cannot reach the levels of maturity that they should be able to when they reach a certain age.
             The third, and last, characteristic that helps to determine a person with mental retardation is manifestation before age eighteen, or for the condition to be present by the age of eighteen. There are many factors that can contribute to a person having mental retardation. A few causes relate to genetics or are ...