Shame On You

They ought to be ashamed…but I think that shame is a foreign concept to these judges.
“Though the Supreme Court has prohibited the execution of the mentally retarded, a Texas death row inmate who may be retarded cannot raise the issue in federal court because his lawyer missed a filing deadline…”
The inmate, Marvin Lee Wilson, has "made a prima facie showing of mental retardation," a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, United States Court of Appeals for the wrote in an unsigned decision on Tuesday, meaning the court presumed Mr. Wilson to be retarded for purposes of its ruling.
But the panel said it was powerless to consider the case because Mr. Wilson's lawyer filed papers concerning his retardation in a federal trial court without first obtaining required permission from the appeals court…until a deadline had expired. Deadline, how apt!
"However harsh the result may be," the panel said, its hands are tied by deadlines established in a 1996 federal law, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The same law now forbids Mr. Wilson, convicted of killing a police informant, to appeal the Fifth Circuit's ruling to the Supreme Court. Harsh? Yes, I would call death harsh.
“At a hearing in state court in 2004, Mr. Wilson's lawyers presented evidence from a psychologist, Donald Trahan, who said Mr. Wilson's I.Q. had most recently been measured at 61. A 1971 test had measured it at 73. In 1987, it was 75.”
What is it about Texas? Is it something in the water?