Federal Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Barring Death Penalty for Intellectually Disabled Arkansas Death-Row Prisoner Alvin Jackson

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing that Arkansas death-row pris­on­er Alvin Jackson is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intellectual disability. 

On August 13, 2021, a divid­ed 2 – 1 pan­el of the appeals court held that, apply­ing cur­rent diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria, Jackson’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly sub­av­er­age intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing and life­long sub­stan­tial impair­ments in day-to-day func­tion­ing estab­lished that he has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002 that impos­ing the death penal­ty on indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty — then known as men­tal retar­da­tion — vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment pro­scrip­tion again cru­el and unusual punishments.

The deci­sion marked the fourth time Jackson’s case had reached the appeals court on the issue of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In January 2007, the dis­trict court dis­missed Jackson’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, say­ing he was barred from rais­ing it because his pri­or coun­sel had failed to seek relief under an Arkansas statute pro­hibit­ing the death penal­ty for those with men­tal retar­da­tion. The cir­cuit court reversed that rul­ing in November 2007 and returned the case to the dis­trict court. On remand, the dis­trict court denied Jackson’s motions for dis­cov­ery and for fund­ing to devel­op his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, and in January 2009 dis­missed his habeas cor­pus peti­tion with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing. The cir­cuit court against reversed, issu­ing an order in August 2010 direct­ing the dis­trict court to con­duct an evidentiary hearing.

The dis­trict court con­duct­ed an evi­den­tiary hear­ing in 2011 but, in an opin­ion issued in 2016, again denied Jackson’s claim. In doing so, the court applied a test for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty that sig­nif­i­cant­ly devi­at­ed from the clin­i­cal cri­te­ria for assess­ing the dis­or­der. While find­ing that Jackson’s IQ fell with­in the range sup­port­ing an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty diag­no­sis, the dis­trict court improp­er­ly reject­ed his evi­dence of sig­nif­i­cant impair­ments in day-to-day func­tion­ing by attribut­ing those deficits to co-exist­ing per­son­al­i­ty and cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders and focus­ing instead on per­ceived strengths in his func­tion­ing in a prison setting. 

In August 2018, the Eighth Circuit reversed the dis­trict court for a third time and direct­ed the court to eval­u­ate Jackson’s claim using clin­i­cal­ly appro­pri­ate cri­te­ria as direct­ed by the U.S. Supreme Court in sub­se­quent intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty cas­es. After con­sid­er­ing edu­ca­tion­al and men­tal health records from Jackson’s child­hood, the dis­trict court found that he had ​“doc­u­ment­ed deficits in the con­cep­tu­al, social, and prac­ti­cal domains” of dai­ly func­tion­ing that were present since child­hood, qual­i­fy­ing him for an intel­lec­tu­al disability diagnosis. 

In an opin­ion by Judge Bobby Shepherd that was joined by Judge Lavenski Smith, the appeals court affirmed the dis­trict court’s rul­ing, say­ing that Jackson’s ​“child­hood IQ scores, child­hood records, and the expert tes­ti­mo­ny” pro­vid­ed ​“sub­stan­tial evi­dence” of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Judge Steven Grasz dis­sent­ed, say­ing that the dis­trict court had silent­ly shift­ed onto Arkansas the bur­den to dis­prove Jackson’s assert­ed intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, rather than requir­ing Jackson to affir­ma­tive­ly prove his dis­abil­i­ty. The majority’s deci­sion, Grasz wrote, reflects ​“an incre­men­tal decon­sti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” that is incon­sis­tent with the ​“lim­it­ed role” of the judiciary.