US Supreme Court rejected arguments that Marvin Wilson was too mentally challenged to qualify for death penalty.
A Texas man convicted of killing a police informant has been executed after the US Supreme Court rejected arguments that he was too mentally impaired to qualify for the death penalty. Marvin Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead late on Tuesday, 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville. He was convicted of fatally shooting a police drug informant nearly 20 years ago in Beaumont.
Wilson's attorneys had argued that he should have been ineligible for capital punishment because of his low IQ. They cited the US Supreme Court ruling that banned capital punishment for the mentally impaired. In their appeal to the high court, his attorneys pointed to a psychological test conducted in 2004 that pegged Wilson's IQ at 61, below the generally accepted minimum competency standard of 70.