Florida Supreme Court Rules Intellectual Disability Decision Applies Retroactively

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that death-row pris­on­ers who had unsuc­cess­ful­ly argued that they are inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty must be pro­vid­ed a sec­ond chance to prove their claims. On October 20, the Court decid­ed in Walls v. State that Florida must retroac­tive­ly apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 deci­sion in Hall v. Florida, which declared Florida’s pro­ce­dures for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Prisoners whose intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims had been denied under the stan­dard reject­ed in Hall will now be giv­en new oppor­tu­ni­ties to present their claims. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s out­lier prac­tice cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly bar­ring a pris­on­er from pre­sent­ing evi­dence sup­port­ing his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim if his IQ score was above 70 vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. Writing for the Court in Hall, Justice Kennedy explained this strict IQ cut-off require­ment ​“dis­re­gards estab­lished med­ical prac­tice” and ​“con­tra­venes our Nation’s com­mit­ment to dig­ni­ty and its duty to teach human decen­cy as the mark of a civ­i­lized world.” The Hall Court held that “[i]ntellectual dis­abil­i­ty is a con­di­tion, not a num­ber”; and there­fore the deter­mi­na­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty must not only con­sid­er a stan­dard error of mea­sure regard­ing IQ scores, but also con­sid­er adap­tive func­tion­ing, which requires a ​“con­junc­tive and inter­re­lat­ed assess­ment.” The Florida Supreme Court rec­og­nized that “[t]he rejec­tion of the strict IQ score cut­off increas­es the num­ber of poten­tial cas­es in which the State can­not impose the death penal­ty, while requir­ing a more holis­tic review means more defen­dants may be eli­gi­ble for relief.” The deci­sion could affect thir­ty pris­on­ers on Florida’s death row. Like Florida, the Kentucky Supreme Court has also found Hall to apply retroac­tive­ly. That court reaf­firmed its retroac­tivy deci­sion in White v. Kentucky, also decid­ed on October 20.

(D. Kam, ​“Justices order new hear­ing for Frank Walls,” The News Service of Florida, October 20, 2016.) Read the Florida Supreme Court’s deci­sion Walls v. Florida. See Intellectual Disability.