Supreme Court reverses 2 Texas death cases

• Justices say mitigating factors were disregarded

Without argument, the high court issued an unsigned 7-2 ruling reversing the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' decision in the case of LaRoyce Lathair Smith. The lower court had upheld the death sentence of the Dallas killer, who claims faulty instructions prevented jurors from sparing his life based on his 78 IQ and history of learning disabilities. The justices also rejected, without comment, the sentence of Ted Calvin Cole, also known as Jalil Abdul-Kabir. It sent his case back to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the federal court that reviews Texas death sentences. Cole is challenging his sentence, saying jurors were not able to fully consider his troubled childhood and emotional problems. In their opinion in Smith's case, the justices said that despite several of their previous rulings, the Texas court failed to get the message that juries in capital murder cases should fully consider mitigating evidence. "There is no question that a jury might well have considered petitioner's IQ scores and history of participation in special-education classes as a reason to impose a sentence more lenient than death," the court said in a 12-page opinion. The justices said the state court "erroneously relied on a test we never countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected." [more]