Texas psychologist George Denkowski will never again evaluate inmates' IQ to determine if they are mentally disabled — and thus unable to face the death penalty — or not. The Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists has issued him a reprimand. He will also pay a fine of $5,500. All of which is good news for the fourteen inmates on Death Row who Denkowski, using highly criticized and faulty methods, determined were not mentally handicapped. It comes too late for the two inmates who have already been executed after Denkowski found them mentally capable.
Last January, in a Texas Observer cover story, Investigative Fund reporter Reneé Feltz exposed the questionable methods and junk science used by psychologist George Denkowski in an article about the Texas death penalty case of Mexican immigrant Daniel Plata. In the 2002 Atkins v. Virginia ruling, the Supreme Court stated that "executions of mentally retarded criminals are cruel and unusual." Defense lawyers called Denkowski "Dr. Death" for his finding twenty-one of the twenty-nine inmates he has worked with to be mentally capable — and thus eligible for the death penalty. Feltz showed that he routinely inflated the inmates’ IQ scores through faulty methods.
