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.