The Supreme Court declared yesterday the Constitution bars the execution of the mentally retarded. The court ruled in favor of a Virginia prisoner, Daryl Renard Atkins, who was convicted and sentenced to death for a 1996 robbery and murder. According to Atkins’s lawyers, he has an IQ of 59. The ruling applies to people with an IQ of 70 or lower. The decision comes at a time when two pro-death penalty governors have declared a moratorium on executions, and over 100 innocent people have been exonerated from death row. There are currently over 3,700 people on death row in the United States. Over the past decade and a half, 18 states have prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded. Georgia was one of the first two states to change its law after public outrage at the controversial execution of Jerome Bowden, a mentally disabled man. Bowden had an IQ of 59 at age 14 and an estimated IQ of 65 when he was executed at the age of 34. Here are the last words of Jerome Bowden, spoken before he was electrocuted in June of 1986. They are in the possession of Sound Portraits Productions, and they’re from the death chamber immediately before Bowden’s execution.

Jerome Bowden: “I am Jerome Bowden, and I would just like to state that my execution is about to be carried out. And I would like to thank the people of this institution for taking such good care of me in the way that they did. And I hope that by my execution being carried out, that it may bring some light to this thing, that it is wrong. And I would like to have a final prayer with Chaplain Lavelle [phon.] if that is possible. Thank you very much.”

The final words of Jerome Bowden. Later in the program, Juan González will speak with a prison chaplain who’s ministered to many mentally disabled prisoners before they were executed, and you’ll hear another comment that Mr. Bowden made just before he was killed by the state.

U.S. and British warplanes on patrol in the southern no-fly zone in Iraq attacked civilian targets in southern Iraq Thursday, killing four civilians and wounding 10 others, this according to the official Iraqi News Agency. The agency said the allied warplanes attacked “civilian public service installations” about 370 kilometers south of Baghdad. The warplanes took off from Kuwait and flew a total of 44 sorties, and the Iraq military fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns in response, the agency said.

The Israeli army sent tanks into Nablus and began calling up reserves for a new military operation after Palestinians raided a West Bank settlement, killing a mother, three of her sons and a security official. Eight other people were wounded before Israeli troops stormed the house, killing one of the Palestinian gunmen. Meanwhile, Israeli forces fired on a market in the West Bank city of Jenin today, killing two children and a man and wounding dozens of other Palestinians. They mistakenly thought a curfew had been lifted. Also, Yasser Arafat appealed to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade to halt attacks on Israeli civilians. The appeal comes after two suicide bombings over two days killed 26 Israelis and sent Israeli troops back into four West Bank towns. In Israel, there were growing divisions over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to seize Palestinian areas and occupy them indefinitely. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he strongly opposed long-term reoccupation of Palestinian areas.

Car bombs rocked two Spanish tourist resorts on Friday, injuring at least six people in attacks by suspected Basque separatists. The bombs were timed to coincide with a European Union summit in Seville.

A bomb exploded shortly after a British banker started up his Land Rover in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing him Thursday outside a residential compound in the Saudi capital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but Saudi law enforcement officials have attributed similar attacks over the past few years to expatriates engaged in a turf war in the lucrative black market trade in liquor.

Britain secured immunity from prosecution in the International Criminal Court for its troops in Afghanistan, this while criticizing the United States for its refusal to accept the tribunal.

The New York governor, clearly concerned about the Latino vote in the fall election, met with New York mothers of the disappeared in Albany yesterday, offering them a bill that would potentially release their loved ones from prison, but would not overhaul the Rockefeller Drug Laws as they have demanded. Randy Credico, director of the Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, was with the mothers of the disappeared in Albany and met with the governor. Randy, what is the latest as the legislation comes to a close in Albany? Will the Rockefeller Drug Laws be overturned?

Randy Credico: “It was dead yesterday, but it was revived by the mothers going up there meeting with the governor and kind of sandbagging him. The Senate now is staying an extra week to try to deal with this issue. The governor met with the mothers and offered them something that would, you know, bribe them and divide the rest of the movement. And it would help out 0.01% of the population get out of prison. So, New York, with the governor’s plan, would go from having the worst drug laws in the nation to having the worst drug laws in the nation. And that has been stopped. We also gave the governor a copy of Howard Zinn’s ’People’s History of the United States,’ and we hope he reads it.”

Among the ads the mothers have threatened to put in Latino newspapers are “Pataki’s kids go to Yale. Our kids go to jail.”

And finally, two interesting reports on press censorship. Executives at CNN dismissed reports that CNN might be removed from the air in Israel, saying it retains strong relationships with Israel’s satellite and cable distributors. At least partly in response to protests about CNN coverage from Israeli government officials and viewers, CNN adopted a formal policy to avoid the use of videotaped statements by Palestinian suicide bombers or their families. Eason Jordan, the top news executive at CNN, flew to Israel for consultations with Israeli officials over covering the conflict. Also, CNN disavowed the comments of CNN founder Ted Turner in which he equated Israeli military actions with the suicide bombers, saying, “I would make the case that both sides are engaged in terrorism.” Interestingly enough, Susanna Flood, a spokesperson for CNN International, said CNN received assurances from Yes executives, the satellite company in Israel, that there would be no disruption in the service in Israel. But they did acknowledge that they are putting Fox News next to CNN on the satellite, so if people did not want to watch CNN, they could flip quickly to Fox. Israeli government officials said the addition of Fox News would surely attract some Israeli viewers who have questioned CNN’s coverage because “Fox will be seen as coming from the Israeli point of view.”

And less people think censorship only occurs abroad. This news from Camden, New Jersey: Four Philadelphia Inquirer reporters were each fined $1,000, and three of them were given community service, for a story in which they quoted one juror and identified another, after the sensational trial of a rabbi charged with murder. The reporters were sentenced, one to 180 days in jail, suspended as long as he serves five days of community service. Two were each given a suspended 180-day sentence provided they serve 10 days of community service. They will be assigned to a work detail such as picking up trash through the county Sheriff’s Labor Assistance Program, giving new meaning to the term “muckraking.”