Johnny Paul Penry (born May 5, 1956) is a Texas prisoner serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment without parole for rape and murder.
[4] On Oct 25, 1979, Penry broke into Carpenter's house and stabbed her with a pair of scissors she had been using to make a Halloween costume for her niece.
Carpenter eventually died from internal bleeding, but lived long enough to call a friend and provide a description of suspect as she was being transported to a hospital in an ambulance.
In Penry v. Lynaugh, the court held that the execution of intellectually disabled offenders did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, but it overturned his death sentence, holding that Texas laws on jury instructions had not allowed jurors in Penry's case to adequately consider intellectual disability as mitigating evidence during the punishment phase of his trial.
[7] In 2002, Polk County district judge Elizabeth Coker removed his longtime defense attorney, John Wright, from his case.
Coker ruled that Wright's continued work on the case might represent a conflict of interest if Penry were to advance an argument of ineffective legal counsel.
The judge had previously declared Penry competent to stand trial, but she questioned whether he was able to comprehend an affidavit he signed that said he wanted Wright to continue to represent him.
[2] On February 15, 2008, Penry agreed to a plea bargain in which he was given three consecutive sentences of life without parole for Carpenter's murder and sexual assault.
Wright said that it was "galling" for prosecutors to require Penry to say that he was not intellectually disabled, but he characterized the stipulation as "a small price to pay" for eliminating the possibility of execution.