4, para.2). Therefore, the presence of an underlying mental illness that did not render a defendant unable to appreciate that he was committing a crime or compel him to commit it, may still be sufficient to mitigate the crime. Furthermore, a lack of mental ability that does not rise to the level of mental retardation may be introduced to mitigate the crime. Therefore, the forensic psychologist needs to be able to assess a defendant's mental functioning, from the standpoint of intellectual and emotional functioning in order to assess competency.

In fact, while mental retardation is not a mental illness, the presence of mental retardation is an issue that forensic psychologists may have to determine when looking into the death penalty. For most of the history of the death penalty, mental retardation was not a barrier to the imposition of the death penalty. However, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Court determined...
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