The American Constitution Society posts ,"Hall v. Florida: Florida’s Attempt to Limit Atkins’ Constitutional Protection," by John H. Blume. He's a professor at Cornell University Law School. Here's the beginning:
On March 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Hall v. Florida. The narrow but important question the Court must decide is whether persons who have been clinically diagnosed with mental retardation (now commonly referred to as intellectual disability) can nevertheless be put to death if they cannot satisfy the rigid IQ test score cutoff of 70 established by the Florida Supreme Court—a cutoff clearly inconsistent with the commonly agreed upon definition of mental retardation embraced by the Court in its 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia which all but a handful of outlier states use.
In Atkins, the Court recognized that a “national consensus” had developed against executing persons with mental retardation and concluded that the practice is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Prior to Atkins, Florida courts had determined that “Freddie Lee Hall has been mentally retarded his entire life.” One would think this is a simple case. It should be. Yet, Hall is at risk of being executed. How could this be?The Atkins Court relied upon the clinical definitions developed by the two premier professional organizations in the field: the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR), now the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD); and, the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Both definitions have three prongs: significantly subaverage intellectual functioning; adaptive functioning deficits; and onset during the developmental period. Only the first prong is at issue in Hall, and without getting too “deep in the weeds,” significantly subaverage intellectual functioning is understood as an IQ of approximately 70. The question is—at bottom—a simple one: is Florida free—post-Atkins—to adopt a definition of intellectual functioning for capital cases, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the professional consensus regarding the use of IQ tests?
The SCOTUSblog case file for Hall v. Florida contains all briefing in the case.
Earlier coverage of 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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