Susanna L. Blumenthal is Julius E. Davis professor of law and professor of history at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of "Law and the Modern Mind: Consciousness and Responsibility in American Legal Culture." We need a new standard of mental competence, one that doesn’t allow for the execution of people who move between periods of sanity and insanity. A line of Supreme Court cases has clearly held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits such punishment. His words bear repetition today as the state of Virginia and its governor stand on the verge of “exacting a mindless vengeance.”

Source: Washington Post July 06, 2017 20:17 UTC