ATLANTA, June 13 (UPI) -- Killers in Georgia must meet a high standard of proof of mental retardation to avoid execution, the state Supreme Court said Monday.
Ruling against Alphonso Stripling, who killed two co-workers at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1988, Justice Harold Melton's majority opinion held that the highest standard of proof -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- did not violate the Constitution.
With the court's 6-1 decision, Georgia remains the only state with such a strict burden of proof. Stripling had argued for the looser standard of preponderance of the evidence.
His conviction was not at issue.
The court said mental retardation was not analogous to incompetence to stand trial, where the lower standard applies.
The lone dissenter, Justice Robert Benham, said the decision "amounts to an unfettered abuse of discretion in violation of the Constitution."
"Although Georgia led the nation in prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded offenders," he wrote, "it is now the only state that imposes a reasonable-doubt standard to prove mental retardation. To be an outlier in this context is not for the greater good."
