Supreme Court Ruling on Texas Courts' Definition of Intellectual Disability in Death Penalty Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments from a Texas man's lawyers, who will argue that he is too intellectually disabled to be executed for the shooting death of an elderly store clerk 36 years ago during a robbery.  The Houston Chronicle article points out that Texas' system used to determine in court if a person is intellectually disabled is at stake.

"Texas has been an outlier in its approach to intellectual disability," said Jordan Steiker, director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas School of Law.

The following is excerpted from the article.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Atkins case in 2002 that it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment to execute people with mental disabilities, which at the time was labeled as mental retardation. But the high court left it up to the states to determine how to measure the disability.  The man's lawyers argue that the state's system is based on the character Lennie, from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which defies modern medical standards about measuring intelligence.

The State of Texas has argued that the man was never found to be mentally deficient as a child, and that his IQ test scores fluctuated between the 60s and upper 70s.   A low-70s IQ  is considered evidence of mental deficiencies by many in education and medicine.  However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his claim of intellectual disability in September 2015, saying the man did not meet Texas' seven-pronged test for intellectual competence.  Texas takes a more basic approach, such as whether an individual lies, acts rationally and responds to stimuli. Even if a person has some deficits, Texas finds that they can also have strengths that make up for these deficits, and makes them eligible for the death penalty.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday, November 29th, but a ruling is not be expected for several months.

Questions:  What role, if any, does Correctional Education (CE) play in helping to determine the intellectual competence of inmates?  Do you think that the outcome of this case may impact some inmates' willingness to pursue CE, out of fear over how it may impact future legal proceedings in their case?

Mike Cruse

Disabilities in Adult Education Moderator

michaelcruse74@gmail.com