The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in a Florida death penalty case, in which an inmate argued that his intellectual disability made him exempt from execution, could help answer a decade-old question in Texas and other states about how to establish whether an inmate is too severely impaired to be subject to the death penalty.
“This is the courts trying to play catch-up with where the mental health community is going,” said Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental affairs at the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.
The Supreme Court last month agreed to hear the case of Freddie L. Hall, who was sentenced to death for the 1978 rape and murder of a pregnant woman and the fatal shooting of a police officer. Oral arguments are expected in the spring.
Mr. Hall’s lawyers assert that his low I.Q., his deficits in adaptive behavior and a history of a lack of intellectual abilityrender him ineligible for execution. The high court is expected to decide whether Florida’s criteria for evaluating intellectual disability in death penalty cases — similar to those Texas uses — are adequate.