| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | None are listed. |
| Posture: | None described. |
| Issue: | Should the death penalty ever be imposed on a retarded criminal? |
| Holding: | No. |
| Rule: | The constitution places a substantive restriction on a state's power to execute a mentally retarded offender. |
| Reasoning: | A claim that punishment is excessive is to be judged by the currently prevailing standards. 8A is about the dignity of man, and that's something that changes over time. The trend, including a consensus among major religions, is towards less execution. And people view the retarded as less culpable. |
| Dicta: | Another big dissent from Scalia: why would we think that the members of the court have better sense of the American peoples' views than their elected representatives? And what's with all this extra-constitutional persuasive authority: are we the interpreters of the constitution, or what? And especially what do we care what people in other nations think? |