U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas death penalty case on intellectual disability

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Texas Tribune:

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas death penalty case on intellectual disability

 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding intellectual disability and executions in Moore v. Texas.

 

by Jolie McCullough Nov. 28, 2016 12:01 AM

 

It’s unconstitutional to execute people with intellectual disabilities, that much the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear. But things get fuzzy when individual states try to legally determine “intellectual disability,” and that ambiguity is leading Texas to its latest hearing before the high court.

 

On Tuesday morning, the eight justices will hear arguments surrounding Texas’ method of determining the condition, ultimately deciding if the state's approach fits within past rulings specifying who can be put to death. The case is brought forth by Bobby Moore, a death row inmate of more than 36 years.

 

In April 1980, Moore, then 20, walked into a Houston supermarket with two other men, wearing a wig and holding a shotgun, according to Texas’ brief to the high court. He approached the clerks’ counter and shot 73-year-old James McCarble once in the head, killing him. Decades after receiving the death sentence, the 57-year-old man still sits in prison.

 

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Texas v science

The Supreme Court is set to review a death sentence grounded in fiction

Nov 23rd 2016, 11:09 by S.M. | NEW YORK

 

FANS of “Of Mice and Men”, the 1937 novella by John Steinbeck, will recall the character of Lennie Small, an oafish, dim-witted man whose physical strength is ill matched to his love of rabbits. On November 29th, in a remarkable example of law imitating art, a hearing at the Supreme Court will put Lennie back in the spotlight. The question is whether the fictional man’s intellectual profile should help determine the fate of Bobby Moore, a real-life Texan awaiting execution.

Mr Moore, a man of limited intellectual capacity, was sentenced to death in 1980 after killing a grocery store clerk during a bungled burglary in Houston, Texas. Aged twenty at the time, Mr Moore had not enjoyed a happy or productive childhood. He failed first grade—twice—and was promoted to second grade only to “keep him with children of a similar age”. Subsequent years remained a struggle. Mr Moore, unable to keep up with the lessons, was often relegated to drawing pictures while other students were doing classwork. He endured taunts http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/11/texas-v-science

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Texas Evaluates Intellectual Disability in Death Penalty Cases Using a Global-Outlier Standard

November 23, 2016

 

by Lawrence O. Gostin, Founding O'Neill Chair in Global Health Law at Georgetown Law, Faculty Director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights, and University Professor at Georgetown Law

 

Since 2002, the Supreme Court has banned the execution of people with intellectual disability. Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens looked to the clinical understanding of intellectual disability and explained that people with that condition bear diminished culpability “by definition” and are “categorically excluded from execution,” lest cruel and unusual punishment be imposed.

 

In spite of this categorical ban, people with intellectual disability still face execution in the U.S. because Texas – the state that carries out far more executions than any other state – has disregarded the Supreme Court’s directive that intellectual disability evaluations in death penalty cases must be informed by the medical community’s diagnostic framework. The Supreme Court will soon have an opportunity to address Texas’s unusual and bizarre approach.

https://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/texas-evaluates-intellectual-disability-in-death-penalty-cases-using-a-global-outlier

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Argument transcript

 

By Andrew Hamm on Nov 29, 2016 at 3:18 pm

The transcript in Moore v. Texas is available here.

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/11/argument-transcript-14/