Sara Catania

THERE IS NO MONEY. NOTHING FOR cancer research or artificial limbs. Far less than before for community colleges, homeless shelters, housing and public transportation. That’s what Governor Gray Davis is telling Californians as the state enters its worst fiscal crisis in decades. In most states across the nation, the news......

There are two ways to look at George Ryan’s decision to empty out Illinois‘ death row: as a desperate act or as a heroic one. My mother, who served alongside Ryan in the state Legislature, believes the former. Over the course of a decade in the ’70s and early ‘80s,......

In all his 46 years, Thomas Nevius has rarely been first at anything. But this week the Nevada death-row inmate became the nation‘s first condemned killer to ask for clemency and have his death sentence commuted because he is mentally retarded. Nevius, an African-American who has scored between 57 and......

Six months after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally retarded prisoners, doctors at San Quentin are gearing up to give IQ tests to all 622 inmates on the nation’s largest death row. Prison officials say the mass screening of condemned inmates -- the first of its kind......

A convicted killer whose death sentence was twice overturned and whose case contributed to the demise of California‘s liberal Rose Bird court is once again asking that his life be spared. Marcelino Ramos, 44, who told his victim to “say your prayers” before fatally shooting her in the head during......

In an appeal that could set the terms for releasing all mentally retarded inmates from California’s death row, a convicted killer is asking the state’s highest court to lift his death sentence because of his impairment. The petition, filed on behalf of Clarence Ray Jr., comes in the wake of......

STANLEY BERNARD DAVIS - Davis, 40, was convicted of shooting to death two college students, Michelle Ann Boyd, 19, and her boyfriend Brian Edward Harris, 20, in September 1985. Davis and three accomplices stole Harris' car and drove them to an area off Mulholland Drive. Police found the murder weapon,......

JUSTICE STEVENS, FOR THE MAJORITY: On the childlike mind of the mentally retarded: ". . . there is abundant evidence that they often act on impulse rather than pursuant to a premeditated plan, and that in group settings they are followers rather than leaders. Their deficiencies do not warrant an......

NOT ONE OF THE 10 MEN WHOSE CASES were tracked in the Weekly's investigation fits the Hollywood version of mental retardation. Not one has Down syndrome. None drools, slurs his words or, by and large, has noticeable physical tics. These men are not the Steinbeckian Lennies of the world, squeezing......

A Virginia jury had to make a choice before convicting Daryl Renard Atkins of robbing and killing a man for beer money. Atkins and his accomplice blamed the other with firing the eight shots. Should the jury believe Atkins, with an IQ of 59, who bumbled on the witness stand......