High court bars rigid IQ cutoff for executions

[IDemo]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court made it more difficult Tuesday for states to impose the death penalty on prisoners who claim an intellectual disability, marking the first time it has fine-tuned a landmark 2002 decision barring executions of the mentally retarded.

The court ruled that Florida must apply a margin of error to IQ tests administered to Freddie Lee Hall, 68, who killed a 21-year-old pregnant woman and a deputy sheriff in 1978. The state had argued that any test score above 70 made prisoners eligible for a death sentence, despite medical guidelines that permit scores to reach 75.

The 5-4 ruling by Justice Anthony Kennedy and the court's four liberal justices will affect a handful of states with similar policies among the 32 states with death penalties on the books. While very few prisoners with intellectual disabilities will be granted reprieves as a result, the ruling clarifies a delicate area of criminal law.

It also comes at a time when states' capital punishment procedures are under siege, beset by a shortage of drugs needed to perform lethal injections and rejuvenated efforts by disability rights groups to stop executions of prisoners with mental impairments. A federal appeals court last week blocked Texas from executing a death-row prisoner claiming intellectual disability.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/27/supreme-court-death-penalty-mental-retardation/8427373/

[Atman]

1. Gosh, what a surprise...the four other GOP judges want to kill people with low IQ's.

I wonder what they would have ruled if the case had been about an intellectually disabled person who happens to own a business? (Yes, I actually know such a person, although she certainly isn't on death row -- but she owns a successful downtown business).

[bpj62]

2. Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas

It ahs nothing to do with IQ. It has simply has to do with their eye for an eye biblical attitude. They clearly feel that all people who receive a death sentence deserve to die regardless of IQ. I would love to see the dissenting opinion if there is one.

[ladjf]

5. "Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas" names to remember. nt

[dbackjon]

6. I prefer to list them "Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia

Because they are RATS

[ladjf]

12. Far worse than rats. Their names may eventually go down in infamy. nt

[davidpdx]

14. I'm surprised those four didn't write something like

"Fry them like chickens" to appease their party masters.

[dballance]

3. Perhaps we should hope for Kennedy to retire rather than Ginsberg.

He's the swing vote and if Obama replaced him with a more liberal person then the 5-4 decisions might become more liberal than conservative.

[davidpdx]

13. No, I'm hoping for Scalia to....

It will be the day that hell called for him to come home.

[dballance]

15. Can't agree with you more.

I'd love for Scalia to retire, along with his "mini-me" Thomas.

If there really is a hell then both of them have VIP seats reserved for them there.

[davidpdx]

16. "Scalia, party of two. Your seats are ready"

No, not those seats!

[yallerdawg]

4. Margin of error.

Science and facts complicate Republican ideology, again.

"We have to think about death sentences? It doesn't say that in the Bible?"

[question everything]

7. I did not vote for Clinton in the 1992 primaries

because he stopped his campaigning in New Hampshire and rushed back to Arkansas to send a mentally challenged man to death.

That prisoner was so out of it that when he was eating his last meal - pizza - he wanted so save some of it "for later."

(I lived in Florida, there were still about 5 candidates.)

[elleng]

8. also here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014812627

[happyslug]

10. That cite was closed and referred back to this thread, which is the older thread.

[elleng]

11. Right.

Want to show the NYT article.

[happyslug]

9. Here is the actual opinion:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-10882_36g4.pdf

What the court found that Florida should consider, but Florida said was irrelevant for his IQ was over 70:

Hall’s upbringing appeared to make his deficits in adaptive functioning all the more severe. Hall was raised—in the words of the sentencing judge—“under the most horri­ble family circumstances imaginable.” Id., at 53. Although “teachers and siblings alike immediately recognized to be significantly mentally retarded . . . this retardation did not garner any sympathy from his mother, but rather caused much scorn to befall him.” Id., at 20. Hall was “constantly beaten because he was ‘slow’ or because he made simple mistakes.” Ibid. His mother “would strap to his bed at night, with a rope thrown over a rafter. In the morning, she would awaken Hall by hoisting him up and whipping him with a belt, rope, or cord.” Ibid. Hall was beaten “ten or fifteen times a week sometimes.” Id., at 477. His mother tied him “in a ‘croaker’ sack, swung it over a fire, and beat him,” “buried him in the sand up to his neck to ‘strengthen his legs,’” and “held a gun on Hall . . . while she poked with sticks.” Hall v. Florida, 614 So. 2d 473, 480 (Fla. 1993) (Barkett, C. J., dissenting).....

The sentencing court went on to state that, even assuming the expert testimony to be accurate, “the learning disabilities, mental retardation, and other mental difficulties . . . cannot be used to justify, excuse or extenuate the moral culpability of the defendant in this cause.” Id., at 56. Hall was again sentenced to death. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that “Hall’s argument that his mental retardation provided a pretense of moral or legal justification” had “no merit.”....

In 2002, this Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the execution of persons with intellectual disability. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S., at 321. On November 30, 2004, Hall filed a motion claiming that he had intellectual disability and could not be executed. More than five years later, Florida held a hearing to consider Hall’s motion. Hall again presented evidence of intellectual disability, including an IQ test score of 71......

In response, Florida argued that Hall could not be found intellectually disabled because Florida law requires that, as a threshold matter, Hall show an IQ test score of 70 or below before presenting any additional evidence of his intellectual disability. App.278–279 (“Under the law, if an I. Q. is above 70, a person is not mentally retarded”). The Florida Supreme Court rejected Hall’s appeal and held that Florida’s 70-point threshold was constitutional. 109 So. 3d, at 707–708.

The Court went on to point out that a IQ score of 71 is subject to error. Such error is handle by "Error Rates" which if applied to the IQ of 71 would also include an IQ of below 70. Thus a straight IQ number cut off does NOT meet the requirement of Due Process and any court has to take into consideration the entire record of mental problems not just the IQ score.

[corkhead]

17. Headline should read: "Supreme Court Bars Executions of Members of Republican Base"