The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that states cannot solely rely on intelligence test scores when deciding whether a death-row inmate is eligible to be executed.
The court, in a 5-4 decision, said IQ tests are imprecise and contain a margin of error, creating a risk that an inmate with a borderline case of intellectual disability will be wrongfully executed. Moreover, the nation’s medical community is in agreement that more information is necessary before making such a determination, the ruling said.
The court struck down a standard used in Florida, which said inmates with IQ scores above 70 were not considered intellectually disabled and therefore could not present other evidence to try and prove it.
Such a rigid rule “creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is unconstitutional,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was joined by the court’s four left-leaning justices.
There are eight other states with similar 70-IQ thresholds: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington, Kennedy noted.
Although Georgia does not have such a bright-line rule, lawyers for death-row inmates with mental disability claims are expected to use Kennedy’s reasoning to launch renewed attacks against the state’s law, widely considered to be one of the most stringent in the country.
In 1988, Georgia became the first state in the country to outlaw the execution of the intellectually disabled. Even so, Georgia is now the only state in the country that sets the most difficult legal threshold for defendants to clear when raising such claims.
In 2002, the Supreme Court banned the execution of the intellectually disabled nationwide. On Tuesday, the high court’s majority said it meant what it said more than a decade ago.
“The death penalty is the gravest sentence our society may impose,” Kennedy wrote. “Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution. Florida’s law contravenes our nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world.”
The court issued its decision in the case of Freddie Lee Hall, a 68-year-old Florida inmate who with an accomplice kidnapped, raped and murdered Karol Hurst, a 21-year-old newlywed, in 1978. Afterward, they killed sheriff’s deputy Lonnie Coburn as he tried to apprehend them.
Medical clinicians testified Hall was considered intellectually disabled his entire life. Over four decades, he had nine IQ evaluations, with scores ranging from 60 to 80.
But even the professionals who design, administer and interpret these tests have agreed for years that IQ scores should be read as a range, not a fixed number, Kennedy said.
“Freddie Lee Hall may or may not be intellectually disabled, but the law requires that he have the opportunity to present evidence of his intellectual disability, including deficits in adaptive functioning over his lifetime,” Kennedy said.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the dissent, said the majority relied too much on professional associations, whose views often change.
“What counts are society’s standards — which is to say, the standards of the American people — not the standards of professional associations, which at best represent the views of a small professional elite,” Alito wrote.
Atlanta attorney Brian Kammer, who represents death-row inmate Warren Hill, said he is actively exploring his options to see if Kennedy's reasoning provides a new basis to challenge Georgia's law.
Hill's case received national attention last year when the three state experts who had testified he was not intellectually disabled changed their diagnoses. They described their evaluations of Hill as rush jobs and said a better scientific understanding today led them to believe Hill is mildly intellectually disabled. Yet Hill's appeals have been repeatedly denied.
Georgia does not have a rigid rule involving IQ test scores to determine whether an inmate is intellectually disabled, although test scores can be considered. Inmates can also present evidence to show they have deficits in adaptive functioning — such as an inability to learn basic skills — and that the onset of these deficits occurred before they were 18.
“Georgia’s (law) is much different,” state Attorney General Sam Olens said Tuesday. “Ours doesn’t have a bright line. … We would like to think we have a much better system.”
Georgia’s law has been under attack because it is the only one in the country that requires capital defendants to prove intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt — the most difficult standard of proof. Most states with the death penalty require defendants to only show they are more likely than not to be intellectually disabled.
When the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the execution of the intellectually disabled, it left it up to individual states to develop their own processes and standards of proof.
For this reason, the court’s decision on Tuesday may be of little help to Georgia inmates like Hill, who sits on death row for beating a fellow prisoner to death with a nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, Hill was serving a life sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend.
“Georgia doesn’t have an issue like the one in Florida,” said Tim Saviello, an associate professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.
Still, the court made it clear it is aware there is imprecision in the process and that rigid rules create an unacceptable risk of unconstitutional executions, Saviello said. “In Georgia, the rigid rule might be the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
About the Author
