commands of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.’” Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 638 n. 13, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2390 n. 13, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980) (quoting Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 605, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2965, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) (plurality opinion)). But the Court’s 1983 decision in California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983), which upheld against constitutional challenge a state statute requiring courts to instruct sentencing juries that the governor could commute a life sentence without possibility of parole to a lesser sentence, could have been read to indicate that the “factors which may call for a less severe penalty” that count for Eighth Amendment purposes do not include possible post-conviction contingencies. See id. at 1014, 103 S.Ct. at 3460 (<HOLDING>). Because of the potential tension between
holding that notwithstanding the eighth amendment the wisdom of the decision to permit juror consideration of possible commutation is best left to the states holding that the eighth amendment to the united states constitution prohibits the execution of mentally retarded individuals holding that execution of the mentally retarded is prohibited under the eighth amendment to the united states constitution holding that under the eighth amendment to the united states constitution the government may not execute a mentally retarded person holding that the primary and overarching consideration in custody determination is the best interest of the child