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By Charles Bierbauer
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "I won. I won," Johnny Penry told his lawyer when she called Texas' death row to tell him the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned his death penalty and ordered Texas to give him a new sentencing hearing.

Penry, who is moderately retarded, first got the word from other death row inmates who'd heard radio reports of the Supreme Court ruling.

The court, by at 6-3 margin, found that jurors had been given contradictory instructions that made it difficult for them to choose between the death penalty and life imprisonment. The jury was supposed to consider mitigating circumstances -- Penry's low IQ and childhood abuse by his mother-- in determining a sentence.

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"I told him that if a jury wanted to give him a life sentence, the judge didn't tell them how," attorney Kathy Puzone said in a telephone interview. "He understands that it's not over yet. He understands there has to be something new in front of a judge and jury."

Penry also knew that his attorneys had to persuade five of the nine justices that the Texas jury instructions were inadequate. Penry's guilt in the 1979 rape and murder of Pamela Carpenter was not in question.

"He wanted to know how many justices he had," Puzone said. "When he found out he had six, he started to scream."

Penry told his attorney he was "going to make tacos" to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling.