Texas executed a death row inmate Tuesday night over objections that, with an IQ of 61, he was too mentally impaired to be subject to the death penalty. He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. local time, 14 minutes after his lethal injection began. Marvin Wilson, 54, had been convicted of killing a police informant in 1992, but his lawyers appealed his case to the Supreme Court, saying he should have been ineligible for the death penalty because his IQ, which a 2004 test pegged at 61, was below the generally accepted minimum of 70. But the Supreme Court sided with prosecutors Tuesday and refused to block Wilson's execution, saying other tests and assessments didn't back up the one the defense invoked.
