Texas death row inmate Jose Garcia Briseño, whose case was used by the Texas courts to estab­lish a very restric­tive def­i­n­i­tion of men­tal retar­da­tion, has been resen­tenced to life with­out parole. His sen­tence was the result of a plea bar­gain end­ing years of lit­i­ga­tion. Briseño has been on death row for over 20 years, and received a stay of exe­cu­tion in 2009 just 5 days before he was to be exe­cut­ed. Briseño’s lawyers have argued he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, but a Texas court said his crime required fore­thought, plan­ning, and com­plex exe­cu­tion, so he was not men­tal­ly retard­ed. No oth­er state uses such non-sci­en­tif­ic fac­tors in deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Recently, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities crit­i­cized the use of these ​“Briseño fac­tors” in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court: “[The Texas] impres­sion­is­tic ​‘test’ directs fact-find­ers to use ​‘fac­tors’ that are based on false stereo­types about men­tal retar­da­tion that effec­tive­ly exclude all but the most severe­ly inca­pac­i­tat­ed.” (Chester v. Thaler 2012). Staff from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had ear­li­er inter­vened on Briseño’s behalf because he had been so help­ful to other inmates.

(Texas Defender Service, April 26, 2013.) See Intellectual Disabilities and Texas.

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