UPDATE: Wesbrook was executed on Mar. 9. EARLIER: Coy Wesbrook is scheduled to be executed in Texas on March 9. If the execution proceeds, it will be the eighth in the U.S. this year, half of which have been in Texas. Wesbrook killed five people after a confrontation with his ex-wife. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that defendants with intellectual disability (formerly referred to as "mental retardation") are exempt from the death penalty. Wesbrook was tested for intellectual disability at the request of the prosecution, following a challenge by Wesbrook's attorneys that he should be spared. Psychologist George Denkowski examined Wesbrook and initially submitted a report finding he had an IQ of 66, placing him below the standard level for intellectual disabilty. Several months later, he filed a new report based on "non-intellectual factors" that said Wesbrook's "actual adult general intelligence functioning is estimated to be of about 84 quality." Ohio State University professor Marc Tasse, an expert on developmental disabilities, said Denkowski's methods had "absolutely no scientific basis." Because of his unscientific procedures in Wesbrook's and 15 other cases, Denkowski was fined by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists and agreed never to testify in another criminal case. Nevertheless, the execution has been allowed to proceed.

"Along with two-thirds of the American public, I believe in capital punishment. I believe that there are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, society has not only the right, but the duty to act in self defense to protect the innocent."

"Executions should be banned by act of Congress for this simple reason: Experience has shown that the death penalty doesn't serve the cause of justice… How likely is it, really, that a killer will be more deterred by the risk of the death penalty than by having to spend the rest of his life in prison? The claim fails the test of common sense. Criminologists and police chiefs say the death penalty just doesn't influence murderers -- partly because its application is so haphazard… It's true that the purpose of punishment is not only deterrence but also retribution. But this doesn't justify the popular view that killers should be killed, any more than it would support the idea that rapists should be raped or thieves stolen from. To be just, retribution must be measured and restrained. That's the difference between justice and revenge…