ShootSpeeders
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Liberals say this is fair because IQ tests are biased towards white culture and against minorities. So why is it asians do better than whites on IQ tests?
How Race-Based IQ Handicapping Led To A Man 8217 s Execution The Daily Caller
08/28/2014
Although the case of Hernandez v. Stephens was one of thousands denied review by the Supreme Court this past term, that it received next to no attention by media outlets is still deeply puzzling.
The case involved a Mexican-born illegal immigrant named Ramiro Hernandez who was convicted in a Texas court in 2000 for the murder of his employer and the rape of his employer’s wife. After given the death penalty, he appealed on the grounds that he was mentally retarded. Hernandez’s lawyers argued that because IQ tests taken prior to trial showed his to be a mere 62, within the standard definition of mental retardation, his execution would be unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
This so-called “Atkins claim” by the defense, named after the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, was rejected by the Fifth Circuit. They accepted the prosecution’s rather astonishing argument that although Hernandez’s IQ was low compared to “American norms,” when “scaled to Mexican norms” it should be adjusted upward. When assessed according to his “cultural group”, they argued, his results should be closer to 70, a level just outside the definition of mental retardation.
As a result, this past April Mr. Hernandez was executed. For this “race-based” approach to IQ, claim attorneys filing a brief on Mr. Hernandez’s behalf, the court violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.