Virginia affirmed the conviction but reversed the sentence after finding that an improper sentencing verdict form had been used. At retrial, the prosecution proved two aggravating factors under Virginia law—that Atkins posed a risk of "future dangerousness" based on a string of previous violent convictions, and that the offense was committed in a vile manner. The state's witness, Dr. Stanton Samenow, countered the defense's arguments that Atkins was intellectually disabled, by stating that Atkins's vocabulary, general knowledge and behavior suggested that he possessed at most average intelligence. As a result, Atkins's death sentence was upheld. The Virginia Supreme Court subsequently affirmed the sentence based on a prior Supreme Court decision, Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302 (1989). Justice Cynthia D. Kinser authored the five-member majority. Justices Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr. and Lawrence L. Koontz Jr. each authored dissenting opinions and joined in each other's dissent. Due to what it perceived to be a shift in the judgments of state legislatures as to whether intellectually disabled people are appropriate candidates for execution in the thirteen years since Penry was decided, the Supreme Court agreed to review Atkins's death sentence. The Court heard oral arguments in the case on February 20, 2002. The ruling The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishments. In the ruling, it was stated that, unlike other provisions of the Constitution, the Eighth Amendment should be interpreted in light of the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." The best evidence on this score was determined to be the judgment of state legislatures. Accordingly, the Court had previously found that the death penalty was inappropriate for the crime of rape in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), or for those convicted of felony murder who neither themselves killed, attempted to kill, or intended to kill in Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982). The Court found that the Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition of the death penalty in these cases because "most of the legislatures that have recently addressed the matter" have rejected the death penalty for these offenders, and the Court will generally defer to the judgments of those bodies. The Court then described how a national consensus that intellectually disabled people should not be executed had emerged. In 1986, Georgia was the first state to outlaw the execution of intellectually disabled people. Congress followed two