Chapter Two: How Many Mentally Retarded Offenders Did He Execute? 

The American public had become increasingly uncomfortable with executions of the mentally retarded; this revulsion was expressed by a Supreme Court ruling in July 2003 which forbade the practice.  This ruling came too late for several Texas inmates. 

Oliver Cruz tested with an IQ of 64 as a schoolboy; 70 is considered the cutoff point for mental retardation.  But Texas did not consider this measurement to be a mitigating factor in his murder case; instead, prosecutors argued that he should be executed because he was retarded, since retardation made him that much more dangerous to society.  Texas obliged. 

Terry Washington was born with severe fetal alcohol syndrome; over his brief lifetime his IQ measured between 58 and 69.  His retardation was coupled with an extremely abusive childhood which produced a violent man.  Mr. Washington committed a murder and was sentenced to death for it; his lawyer doubts that, as he was led to the lethal injection room, he had any idea what was about to happen to him.