NORTH CAROLINA:

Judge orders mentally retarded man removed from death row


A Duplin County man sentenced to death 19 years ago has had the
sentence
vacated by a judge who determined that he is mentally retarded.

Russell Holden Jr., 48, will now serve a life sentence. He was
convicted
in September 1985 of the murder and attempted rape in March 1985 of a
woman he was driving home from a bar.

Testimony at a hearing in Duplin County last month showed that Holden
has
an IQ below 70, the threshold set under a state law passed in 2001 that
prohibits the execution of the mentally retarded. Holden is the 10th
mentally retarded prisoner removed from death row since the law passed,
said Gerda Stein, a spokeswoman for the Durham-based Center for Death
Penalty Litigation.

Holden was classified as mentally retarded as a student and later
worked a
series of manual labor jobs, such as cleaning up at a funeral home and
working at a poultry processing plant, said David Neal, one of his
lawyers.

"All the testimony made it clear that all these were jobs he sort of
stumbled into," Neal said.

Prosecutors opposed Holden's petition, but District Court Judge Russell
J.
Lanier Jr. determined that Holden is mentally retarded and ordered
Friday
that the sentence be vacated.

Holden remained on death row Wednesday, but was scheduled to be
transferred soon, Neal said.

(source: Associated Press)