The SCOTUSblog case file for Hall v. Florida contains all briefing in the case.
"Justices Return to a Death Penalty Issue," is Adam Liptak's New York Times report.
The Atkins decision gave states substantial latitude in how to carry it out and gave only general guidance. It said a finding of mental retardation requires proof of three things: “subaverage intellectual functioning,” meaning low IQ scores; a lack of fundamental social and practical skills; and the presence of both conditions before age 18. The court said IQ scores under “approximately 70” typically indicate retardation.
A Florida law enacted not long before the Atkins decision created what Mr. Hall’s lawyers called an “inflexible bright-line cutoff” requiring proof of an IQ of 70 or below. Last year, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Hall was eligible to be executed because his IQ had been measured at various times as 71, 73 and 80.
In a concurrence, Justice Barbara J. Pariente noted that “Florida, while not unique in its use of a bright-line cutoff score of 70, is not in the majority, although there is no clear national consensus.”
She added that the language of the Florida law and earlier decisions of her court required that Mr. Hall be put to death. “At some point in the future,” she added, “the United States Supreme Court may determine that a bright-line cutoff is unconstitutional because of the risk of executing an individual who is in fact mentally retarded.”
In dissent, Justice James E. C. Perry wrote that “if the bar against executing the mentally retarded is to mean anything, Freddie Lee Hall cannot be executed.”
“Hall is a poster child for mental retardation claims because the record here clearly demonstrates that Hall is mentally retarded,” Justice Perry concluded, saying Mr. Hall suffers from organic brain damage and chronic psychosis.
The Wall Street Journal reports, "Supreme Court to Review IQ Cutoff for Executions," by Jess Bravin.
The U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2002 found it unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded convicts, said Monday it will review IQ thresholds that some states use when deciding whether a prisoner can be put to death.
The high court, in taking up the appeal of a Florida inmate, will determine whether the state’s IQ standard complies with the Constitution. Florida is one of several states that use an inflexible IQ limit in death penalty proceedings.
The case stems from the 1978 murder of Karol Hurst, who was 21 and seven months pregnant. She was kidnapped outside a convenience store in Leesburg, Fla., sexually assaulted and shot. Two men were convicted in the murder, including Freddie Lee Hall.
According Mr. Hall’s Supreme Court petition, expert witness testimony at his trial suggested he was functionally illiterate, had the short-term memory of a first grader and tested at an IQ of 60. The trial judge acknowledged Mr. Hall was retarded, but sentenced him to death after finding that the heinous nature of the crime and other aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating evidence.
"Death penalty: Supreme Court to hear case of mentally deficient Florida man," by Warren Richey for the Christian Science Monitor.
Freddie Lee Hall has been on death row since 1981. There is no doubt that he suffers from severe mental deficiencies. He has been diagnosed with a variety of impairments, including chronic psychosis and a learning disability that left him functionally illiterate with a short-term memory equivalent to a first grader’s.
According to experts in Florida, Mr. Hall has a low IQ, but it is not below the state’s bright-line cutoff of 70, below which the state considers defendants in capital cases to be mentally retarded and exempt from execution.
Hall’s lawyer, Eric Pinkard of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel in Tampa, disputes the conclusion that his client is not mentally retarded.
In his appeal, he is challenging the procedure used by Florida to determine IQ and mental retardation. He says mental health experts should determine a range of IQ scores rather than one particular IQ number.
Ultimately the question in the case is whether Hall’s mental deficiency is so significant that he is unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. If so, his execution by the state would violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment under a 2002 Supreme Court precedent.
Reuters posts, "U.S. high court to examine IQ threshold for death penalty," by David Ingram.
In a brief order, the court said it would consider whether Florida used a lawful process to determine that convicted murderer Freddie Lee Hall, awaiting execution pending appeals, was not mentally disabled after all.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that states could not execute someone who was mentally disabled because doing so violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, but the court left it to states to define who was disabled.
Hall's case gives the court the opportunity to revisit the matter and possibly order some U.S. states to change how they determine who is eligible for the death penalty.
"Supreme Court will rule on role of mental disability in death row case," by Michael Doyle of the McClatchy Washington Bureau. It's via the Miami Herald.
“I’m very pleased they will be taking the case up,” Eric Pinkard, Hall’s Tampa-based appellate attorney, said in a telephone interview Monday. “The Florida definition leads to the possibility that the mentally retarded will be executed.”
Whitney Ray, the press secretary to Florida Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, said in a statement that Florida courts had found that Hall “is not intellectually disabled. We will urge the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Hall’s sentence.”
Pinkard argues that Florida’s explicit definition, which allows the execution of someone with a tested IQ of 70 or above, fails to account for standard measurement error. The Supreme Court itself, in the 2002 decision protecting the intellectually disabled from execution, declared that an IQ between 70 and 75 is typically considered the cutoff score.
The sixteenth of 17 children, Hall was “tortured by his mother and abused by his neighbors,” according to a 1993 dissenting opinion in the Florida Supreme Court. He had an IQ of 60 and was “functionally illiterate and has the short-term memory of a first-grader,” the dissenting opinion observed. In later years, though, Hall’s IQ was variously measured at 71 and 73.
"Supreme Court to address death penalty and mental disability," by David G. Savage in the Los Angeles Times.
His case figures to be the most important death penalty dispute decided during this court term. During the last decade, the court has limited the use of the death penalty by excluding those who were younger than 18 at the time of the crime or who suffered from a significant mental disability.
But until now, the court has not intervened to clarify who qualifies for an exemption based on a mental disability. "It's been 11 years, and this issue is still not settled," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
He was referring to a 2002 case, Atkins vs. Virginia, in which the court held that it was cruel and unusual punishment to impose a death sentence on a murderer who had a mental disability. While these defendants can be sentenced to life in prison, they are not among the small percentage of murderers who deserve to die, said Justice John Paul Stevens.
His opinion spoke for a 6-3 majority, and it left states some leeway to decide who should be deemed mentally disabled. One key question is whether the facts of the crime should figure in the decision.
"U.S. Supreme Court to consider case of Hernando deputy's killer," in the Tampa Bay Times.
Hall has been in prison more than 35 years, almost all of it under a death sentence for Hurst's death. Ruffin was originally sentenced to death, too, but that ruling was later overturned and changed to life in prison.In 1989, the Florida Supreme Court threw out Hall's original death penalty and ordered a new sentencing hearing, ruling that the jury should have heard more evidence about his childhood before he was sentenced to death.
A judge resentenced Hall to death, but declared he was mentally disabled. That took place before the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said executing a mentally disabled inmate violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and before Florida passed a law setting the IQ limit. When Hall later filed another appeal, the same judge ruled he was not mentally disabled because his scores on IQ tests topped 70.
Earlier coverage of the Cert grant in Hall v. Florida begins at the link.
As I often point out, mental retardation is now generally referred to as a developmental or intellectual disability.Because it has a specific meaning with respect to capital cases, I continue to use the older term on the website. More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez.
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