Disability Pride Month Series: Daryl Atkins, Death-Sentenced Prisoner Whose Case Resulted in New Legal Protections for People with Intellectual Disability

This July, in honor of Disability Pride Month, the Death Penalty Information Center is posting a weekly feature highlighting issues related to the death penalty and disability and profiles of individuals who have played key roles in changing the laws to protect prisoners with disabilities.

Daryl Atkins (pictured) became a pivotal figure in the American legal landscape in 2002 due to his role as the named prisoner in a landmark Supreme Court case concerning whether those who have intellectual disability are constitutionally eligible for the death penalty or if their execution would violate the prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments” in the Eighth Amendment.

Prosecutors alleged that on August 17, 1996, Daryl Atkins and William Jones abducted a man named Eric Nesbitt at gunpoint. They then robbed him and forced him to withdraw $200 dollars from an ATM — which was captured on recorded footage. Mr. Nesbitt was later found dead, having been shot eight times. Mr. Atkins and Mr. Jones were charged with several felonies, including capital murder. Though both men admitted to their involvement in the robbery, each claimed the other actually shot the victim. Crucially, in Virginia, only the person who pulled the trigger was eligible for the death penalty. The prosecution persuaded Mr. Jones to testify against Mr. Atkins in exchange for dropping death penalty charges against him and relied heavily on his testimony to secure a death sentence for Mr. Atkins.

At the sentencing phase of the trial, a forensic psychologist testified that Mr. Atkins had “mental retardation” (now called intellectual disability), highlighting a history of failure in school as well as his IQ of 59, which is in the lowest 1% of the U.S. population. Mr. Atkins was described by family, friends and former teachers as someone who struggled socially and was often the target of jokes. Mr. Atkins’ father also testified that his son had ridden a bicycle with training wheels until he was 10 years old. Mr. Atkins’ former high school football coach said that he noticed that Mr. Atkins could not distinguish between his left and right while playing football. His former English teacher testified that as a student, Mr. Atkins struggled to understand the material. Despite this evidence that Mr. Atkins was significantly impaired, he was sentenced to death. On appeal, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the sentence.

In 2002, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr. Atkins’ appeal. Atkins v. Virginia brought national attention to the special vulnerabilities of people with intellectual disability within the criminal justice system, and ultimately led to the Supreme Court to create an important new legal precedent: the execution of people with this condition violates the Eighth Amendment. Justice John Paul Stevens explained that the Court’s ruling, which overturned the Court’s previous decision made in the 1989 case of Penry v. Lynaugh, was motivated by three key factors: the trend of state legislatures to exclude people from this group from death penalty eligibility, the reality that people with intellectual disability are more likely to be coerced into false confessions, and the finding that people with intellectual disability are more likely to “act on impulse rather than pursuant to a premeditated plan, and that in group settings they are followers rather than leaders.” Thus, “their deficiencies do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability.” The Court established a two-prong standard for state courts to use in determining whether a defendant has an intellectual disability. The first prong, a significant impairment in intellectual functioning, requires that an individual have an IQ score approximately two standard deviations below the mean. This has historically meant that to have intellectual disability under the first prong, the defendant must have an IQ of around 70 or below. The second prong is the assessment of potential limitations in adaptive functioning – in other words, how an individual can cope with the demands of everyday life. This second prong allows defendants to present evidence of longstanding struggles with skills such as communication, self-care, socializing, self-direction, health and safety, functional academics, and work. Under the Court’s decision in Atkins, these limitations must be evident in multiple areas of functioning and manifest before the age of 18 (sometimes referred to as the third prong of the analysis).

Despite the fact that his case established this precedent, the Supreme Court made no specific finding about Mr. Atkins’ mental capabilities and remanded his case to the trial court to determine whether he had an intellectual disability. In August 2005, a jury in Yorktown, Virginia found that he did not, a decision which allowed his death sentence to stand. But the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously overturned this finding in 2006. Mr. Atkins’ death sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment in 2008 after a judge found prosecutorial misconduct in his original 1998 trial. He remains in prison today.

While the Atkins decision provides significant legal recognition of both the reduced culpability of people with intellectual disability who commit crimes and the challenges they face in the criminal legal system, the legal procedures that determine who is deserving of legal protection often do not protect many who need it the most. That’s because the Court said it would leave the procedural decisions to state legislatures. It would be another dozen years before the Court would agree to review a state’s compliance with the Atkins decision, finding Florida’s procedures inadequate (Hall v. Florida) and later, those of Texas (Moore v. Texas).

The determination of intellectual disability depends on state law and the defense team’s ability to engage in a rigorous investigation of their client’s life, including extensive interviewing, psychological evaluations, and thorough reviews of educational and medical records. This process inherently favors defendants with access to quality counsel and adequate resources. In states like Georgia, state law requires that defendants prove their disability “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the highest legal standard in the country, and one which prevents many impaired individuals from benefitting from the protections Atkins promised. Thus, while Atkins v. Virginia set a crucial legal precedent, there is still much work to be done to protect vulnerable individuals with intellectual disability in our criminal justice system.