The oral arguments transcript is now available in Adobe .pdf format.
"Court skeptical of IQ scores in deciding execution," is the initial AP report filed by Mark Sherman, via the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Supreme Court seems likely to say that states can't rely on intelligence test scores alone in borderline cases to determine that a death row inmate is mentally able and thus eligible to be executed.
The justices heard arguments on a snowy Monday in a challenge from a Florida inmate who says there is ample evidence to show he is mentally disabled, even though his most of IQ scores have topped 70.
That score is the widely accepted as a marker of mental disability, but medical professionals say that test results have a margin of error and in any case are just one factor in determining mental disability.
The decisive vote appears to belong to Justice Anthony Kennedy and he repeatedly questioned the state's argument for a rigid cutoff.
There are two final previews of note. "With Death Penalty, How Should States Define Mental Disability?" is by Nina Totenberg for NPR Morning Edition. There is audio at the link.
Twelve years after banning the execution of the "mentally retarded," the U.S. Supreme Court is examining the question of who qualifies as having mental retardation, for purposes of capital cases, and who does not.
In 2002, the high court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing "mentally retarded" people is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. But the justices left it to the states to define mental retardation.
Now the court is focusing on what limits, if any, there are to those definitions.
Today's Wall Street Journal reports, "Supreme Court to Revisit IQ Rule in Death-Penalty Cases," by Jess Bravin.
The Supreme Court will consider on Monday whether Florida's bright-line rule for determining which defendants are "mentally retarded" and thus ineligible for the death penalty violates the Constitution.
Florida, which ranked second, after Texas, in the number of executions last year, allows anyone with an IQ above 70 to be executed. The case being argued was brought by a condemned inmate whose lowest relevant IQ score, according to a sentencing court, was 71.
Earlier coverage of Hall v. Florida begins at the link. The SCOTUSblog case file for Hall v. Florida contains all briefing.
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.
Related posts are in the mental retardation category index.
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