Jackson Free Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — An attorney asked the Mississippi Supreme Court on Tuesday to toss out a death sentence for a man who has spent more than half his life on death row, saying he's mentally disabled and should not be executed for killing a family of four a quarter-century ago.

Attorney Alexander Kassoff, who works for the state Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, argued Tuesday that Anthony Carr, 50, cannot be executed. He cited a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring states from executing people who are mentally disabled.

Jason Davis of the Mississippi Attorney General's Office countered that Carr's death sentence should be upheld even though two psychologists disagreed about his mental abilities.

Mississippi justices heard more than an hour of arguments, and did not say when they would rule.

Carr was one of two men convicted in the slayings of Carl and Bobbie Jo Parker, their 12-year-old son Gregory and 9-year-old daughter Charlotte. The family had just returned from church when they were killed in their home in 1990.

Sparsely populated Quitman County had to raise taxes for three straight years to pay for the defense of Carr and Robert Simon Jr., who both still await execution in one of Mississippi's longest-running capital cases.

In May 2011, Simon's execution was only four hours away when a federal appeals court ordered a halt to consider his mental disability claim. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal in March.

Mississippi's justices are considering Carr's appeal of a 2013 decision by Quitman County Circuit Judge Brenda Wiggs, who upheld his death penalty. After hearing from two psychologists, she said it was "too close to call" whether Carr qualifies as mentally disabled.

"The state submits that it absolutely was not a tie, categorically was not a tie," Davis said.

Kassoff said otherwise in his written brief.

"After the execution, it will be impossible to look back and say that Mississippi did not execute a mentally retarded person," Kassoff wrote. "It will be possible to say, though — in fact, the conclusion will be inescapable — that Mississippi did execute a person who was as likely as not mentally retarded."