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.