"Steinbeck Family Outraged That Texas Judge Cited ‘Of Mice and Men’ in Execution Ruling," is Robert Mackey's post at the New York Times Lede blog.
After Thomas Steinbeck, the writer’s son, read a Guardian article on how his father’s novel had been used in a Texas court to argue for the execution of the mentally retarded, he joined the effort to halt the killing of Mr. Wilson, The Beaumont Enterprise reported. In a statement released on Tuesday, just before Mr. Wilson was put to death for a fatal shooting in 1992, Mr. Steinbeck wrote:
On behalf of the family of John Steinbeck, I am deeply troubled by today’s scheduled execution of Marvin Wilson, a Texas man with an I.Q. of 61. Prior to reading about Mr. Wilson’s case, I had no idea that the great state of Texas would use a fictional character that my father created to make a point about human loyalty and dedication, i.e., Lennie Small from “Of Mice and Men,” as a benchmark to identify whether defendants with intellectual disability should live or die.
My father was a highly gifted writer who won the Nobel Prize for his ability to create art about the depth of the human experience and condition. His work was certainly not meant to be scientific, and the character of Lennie was never intended to be used to diagnose a medical condition like intellectual disability. I find the whole premise to be insulting, outrageous, ridiculous and profoundly tragic. I am certain that if my father, John Steinbeck, were here, he would be deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in this way. And the last thing you ever wanted to do, was to make John Steinbeck angry.
In 1937, the novelist himself told The New York Times that the model for his character, a killer who did not comprehend his own actions, was shown leniency by the American legal system of the time. “Lennie was a real person,” Mr. Steinbeck said. “He’s in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn’t kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times I saw him do it. We couldn’t stop him until it was too late.”
"Steinbecks: Leave Lennie alone," by Rania Khalek at Salon.
Despite having been diagnosed with mental retardation by a court-appointed neuropsychologist, Texas courts determined, based on unfounded and highly subjective standards, that Wilson was not mentally retarded and therefore was eligible for execution. Texas, unlike any other death penalty state, measures mental retardation using nonclinical standards invented by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Known as the “Briseño factors,” these standards have absolutely no basis in science or clinical application. Instead they were inspired by Lennie Small, the fictional migrant farmworker from the famous novel “Of Mice and Men,” written by the late Nobel Prize-winning American author John Steinbeck.
Wilson’s attorney, Lee Kovarsky, told Salon that eight years later, not a single clinician or scientific body uses or even recognizes the “Briseño factors” as valid. “There is no citation to any science or opinion as to where those factors come from,” he adds. In fact, the only reference the TCCA made was to Steinbeck’s Lennie Small.
"John Steinbeck's writing shouldn't be used in death row cases, says son," by Nadia Khomami at the Telegraph.
John Steinbeck’s son has criticised the State of Texas over its use of his father’s fiction in death row cases.
Texas has been using the mental disability of Lennie Small, the Nobel prize-winning author's fictional character in Of Mice and Men, to define learning difficulties and thus to justify its execution of Marvin Wilson, who was put on death row for the 1992 murder of a police informant.
Earlier coverage of the execution of Marvin Wilson begins with the preceding post.
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