Equal Justice Initiative - Alabama Executes Mentally Impaired Inmate Holly Wood (September 9, 2010)
"In its fourth execution this year, the State of Alabama put to death Holly Wood today. The Alabama Supreme Court denied Mr. Wood's request for a stay and Governor Riley denied his application for clemency in spite of strong evidence that he suffers from the type of intellectual impairments that the United States Supreme Court has held bar the death penalty, and which his inexperienced lawyer failed to present at his trial.
Holly Wood, an African-American man with an IQ less than 70, was too poor to hire a lawyer. The trial court appointed him a lawyer who had just been admitted to the Bar and had no experience in criminal law. The lawyer failed to pursue evidence of Mr. Wood's severe mental impairments even though a competency evaluation revealed that Mr. Wood could not read at better than a third-grade level and had a low IQ. Mr. Wood was convicted and sentenced to death..." [RESTOFSTORY]
