Texas to Execute "Mentally Retarded" Death Row Inmate

Texas uses its own definition of mental retardation and Marvin Wilson doesn't qualify

A death row prisoner who has been medically diagnosed as "mentally retarded" and therefore exempt from execution is set to die on Tuesday in Texas, a state that rejects scientific consensus and instead applies its own definition of learning difficulties based on a character in a John Steinbeck novel.

Barring a last minute intervention by the courts, Marvin Wilson, 54, will be put to death by lethal injection even though he has been subjected to scientifically-recognised tests that show him to be intellectually disabled – or "mentally retarded" as the US legal system still calls the condition.