[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS

[Rick Halperin]

March 28



TEXAS:

Justices side with Texas death row inmate who argued intellectual disability


The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with a Texas man on death row who argued he 
was mentally disabled and could not be executed.

In a 5-3 ruling, the court said the state's definition and standards for 
assessing intellectual disability "create an unacceptable risk that persons 
with intellectual disability will be executed."

Those standards, known as the Briseno factors, take into account whether 
neighbors, teachers and friends think the person is intellectually disabled, 
makes plans or was impulsive, is a leader or a follower, responds in a rational 
way to situations, respond coherently to oral or written questions and can hide 
facts or lie to others in their own interest.

In delivering the opinion of the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said 
adjudications of intellectual disability should be informed by the views of 
medical experts.

"Texas cannot satisfactorily explain why it applies current medical standards 
for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, yet clings to 
superseded standards when an individual's life is at stake," she wrote in the 
majority opinion, which Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia 
Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined.

The case centered on Bobby James Moore, who was convicted of capital murder and 
sentenced to death for fatally shooting a store clerk during a botched robbery 
that occurred when Moore was 20 years old.

Evidence at his trial showed that he had significant mental and social 
difficulties beginning at an early age. At 13, he lacked basic understanding of 
the days of the week, the months of the year and the seasons. He could hardly 
tell time or understand the basic principle that subtraction is the reverse of 
addition.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), however, said Moore had failed to 
prove significantly sub-average intellectual functioning with an IQ score of 
74.

Ginsburg said, however, that when an IQ score is close to, but above, 70, court 
precedent requires courts to account for the test's "standard error of 
measurement" and consider a defendant's adaptive functioning.

She said the court also deviated from prevailing clinical standards in 
considering his adaptive functioning.

Chief Justice John Roberts filed a dissenting opinion that Justices Samuel 
Alito and Clarence Thomas joined.

Roberts said he agrees that the state used unacceptable standards to analyze 
Moore's adaptive deficits, but disagreed that it erred in analyzing Moore's 
intellectual functioning.

"The Court overturns the CCA's conclusion that Moore failed to present 
sufficient evidence of both inadequate intellectual functioning and significant 
deficits in adaptive behavior without even considering 'objective indicia of 
society's standards' reflected in the practices among the states," he wrote.

"The Court instead crafts a constitutional holding based solely on what it 
deems to be medical consensus about intellectual disability."

(source: thehill.com)