In the article, Texas Psychologist Punished in Death Penalty Case, psychologist George Denkowski is being accused of diagnosing fourteen inmates to be mentally competent enough to face the death penalty, when it is questionable whether they actually were or not. Other psychologists believed that his practice was not legitimite and also critisized it to be unscientific. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional to execute mentally impaired inmates, but they left it up to the states to define what exactly it meant. Texas created a three-part criteria in order to determine an inmates mental competence. Having the ability to intelligently function below average, lacking behavior skills, and having these problems from a young age are what determines if a convict is mentally capable to deal with the death sentence in an effective manner. Two years ago, other psychologists and defense attorneys observed and reported that Denkowski would purposely make an inmate's intelligence level seem to be higher so they would be eligible to face the dealth penalty.
In the end, Denkowski was only given a $5,000 fine and agreed to not conduct any disability evaluations in the future. Other than that, all the charges were dropped. This angers me. This man is playing with people's lives like it's not a big deal. Two of the inmates that he evaluated were given the death penalty and it will never be known if they were fully able to understand what their punishment was all about. For all we know, one of those men could have been innocent and he was scared into thinking he did something wrong, due to his incompetence. Clearly Denkowski was not in his profession for the right reasons. It said that he isn't allowed conduct these types of evaluations, but I can't help but wonder what other sorts of shady things he pulls with other non-criminalized clients.
2 comments:
After reading the commentary on the article, Texas Psychologist Punished in Death Penalty Cases, I agree with Ashley and find it all to be a little on the fishy side. “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that states cannot execute mentally handicapped people.” This seems like a good idea, but one that has many loop holes. They never set guidelines on determining whether someone is “mentally handicapped” which in return left the details in the hands of the states. Texas uses a basic three part test, which includes a below average intellectual function, also a lack of adaptive behavior skills, and finally a check to see how long they have had this problems. Hmm well that seems only like two categories to pass or fail in, and one piece of criteria that determines the legitimacy of the handicapped. I’m not arguing for or against it, but I’m glad to see they check the background. I’m sure even when facing the death penalty most people would try to back out in any way possible. With that stated, I’m sure many of inmates have pleaded crazy, incapable, handicapped or any other problem just to get off death row. That’s why they have to go thru a process to determine if their handicapped. But when the tests are flawed, and criticized by many “psychologists and defense lawyers complained to the board of psychologist examiners that Denkowski used unscientific methods that artificially inflated intelligence scores to make defendants eligible for the death penalty.” You have to question the legitimacy when many people speak up about a mal-practice. I think its wrong that Denkowski veered from the standardized tests, and of course he would have an argument proposing why he didn’t use them. “Denkowski explained why he deviated from the standard use of a test that evaluates adaptive behavior, or life skills. The test is typically administered to family and friends who know the person to ask about how the person functions.” But instead he did the test himself, hmmm possibility for a bias ? I’d say so… and his argument was that the family members would plead crazy just so they wont lose the convicted. Ok so why shouldn’t you screen them through another Dr. ? These ideas shouldn’t seem so hard, and if he would’ve taken the time to check the validity of his tests he wouldn’t be in this situation. It doesn’t seem fair to an individual, no matter what the condition is, to get mistreated and stripped of basic freedoms. Dr Denkowski got away with a slap on the wrist fine, meanwhile two of his fourteen inmates have lost their life. Hopefully the others, now on death row, will get a second shot at evaluation, and that would truly see if his findings were accurate. Matters that deal with someone’s life should not be taken shortly, or in this case with one Psychologist, no one person should have the power to take someone’s life, its not something to be played with.
After reading Texas Psychologist Punished in Death Penalty Cases from United State of Texas, I agree with Ashley. Playing with people lives and all he got was a $5,000 fine and to agreed not to do it again. Even if they are mental, he should have been punish more rather than a fine and an agreement. An agreement isn't much since he could turn back on his words and continue with whatever he was doing. The people who did the ruling need to be replace because playing with people lives is no joke.
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