A Texas man whose lawyers say is clinically "mentally retarded" is set to be put to death by lethal injection. Nearly 20 years ago Marvin Wilson was convicted of fatally shooting a police drug informant, with the sentence of death by lethan injection. It was a penalty the US Supreme Court soon afterward found to violate the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment when imposed on the mentally retarded. Texas courts have judged Wilson as not mentally retarded -- even though psychologists measured his IQ in the bottom one percentile, about equal to that of an average five year old child. Commenting on the case of Wilson, Simon Whitaker, a clinical psychologist from the UK told Al Jazeera: "This is a miscarriage of justice, he would have the same reasoning powers of a five year old child, if a five year old child killed someone we would not execute them in part." "With his diagnosis he cannot make rational decisions, there will be a clear problem for him to think things through." Texas is one of 33 states, along with the federal government, which still maintains the death penalty, which still has widespread support, as a recent poll indicated more than seventy per cent of Texans approve of capital punishment for murder.
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