{Louisville, Kentucky}...Kentucky death row inmate 59 year old Thomas Clyde Bowling has lost an appeal to his death sentence. The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Bowling is not entitled to have his sentence overturned based on a claim of mental disability. The court also ruled that, because Bowling has raised the issue before, he's now barred from bringing it up in the future. Bowling was convicted for the shooting deaths of Eddie and Tina Early of Lexington. The husband and wife were shot on the morning of April 9, 1990 while sitting in their car before opening their family-owned dry cleaning business. Their 2 year old child was wounded. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that executing the mentally disabled amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The ruling left it to each state to set guidelines for determining whether a person is mentally disabled.
