By C1 Staff
WASHINGTON — Attorneys for one of the inmates accused of killing an unarmed corrections officer are having him tested for mental retardation, a step that could save his life.
James Ninete Leon Guerrero and fellow inmate Joseph Cabrera Sablan, whose mental capacity has not been called into question, are accused of killing Jose Rivera on June 20, 2008, according to Merced Sun-Star.
Attorneys representing Leon Guerrero have dropped their efforts to have him ruled incompetent to stand trial, instead testing him for retardation as a likely prelude to asking the Justice Department to reconsider its decision to pursue the death penalty.
The Supreme Court in a 2002 decision banned the execution of mentally retarded defendants.
Videotape evidence and eyewitnesses both state that Leon Guerrero tackled Rivera and held him down while Sablan stabbed the corrections officer repeatedly with a weapon resembling an ice pick. Both inmates have a record of assaulting others behind bars and both appear to have been intoxicated on “prison brew” at the time, according to investigators.