I sure hope Juan has time to do his homework on this guy!!!
Capital cases challenge psychologists Ban on executing mentally retarded fuels scrutiny of evaluations
By KAREN PATTERSON, The Dallas Morning News Oct. 2003
Along with psychologists Robert Geffner and Elizabeth Lim, Dr. Hart has compared neuropsychological functioning of death penalty offenders to people outside the criminal justice system who had either been exposed to a toxic substance or had suffered a so-called closed head injury, like a concussion. Depending on what measures were used, at least one-quarter, and up to two-thirds, of the 33 death penalty offenders showed signs of neuropsychological impairment, said Dr. Lim, of Eastern Correctional
Institution in Westover, Md.
Yet data on the 33 offenders indicated that perhaps only one would qualify as mentally retarded based on intelligence testing, or IQ, scores alone, said Dr. Geffner, founder and president of the Family Violence & Sexual Assault Institute. A person could have a pretty severe neuropsychological impairment – from a car accident or fall, say – and still score above the cutoff for retardation. "We need to look at brain impairment and not just mental retardation," he said.
Even in looking just at mental retardation, intelligence testing is problematic. Traditionally, people with an IQ score below 70 – about 2.3 percent of the population – are considered mentally retarded, Dr. Price
said. But now, to account for measurement error, a cutoff of 70 to 75 is often used – a range that means twice as many people could be considered retarded.