Federal Court Removes Intellectually Disabled Man from Louisiana Death Row

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5^th Circuit has ruled in favor of Kevan Brumfield, uphold­ing the deci­sion of a Louisiana fed­er­al dis­trict court that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. Louisiana’s state courts had ini­tial­ly denied Brumfield resources to inves­ti­gate evi­dence of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and then dis­missed his case with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing, find­ing that he had not pre­sent­ed suf­fi­cient evi­dence to jus­ti­fy fur­ther review of the issue. A fed­er­al dis­trict court then grant­ed Brumfield funds to inves­ti­gate and devel­op facts sup­port­ing his claim, con­duct­ed a hear­ing, and found him to be intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. An ear­li­er rul­ing by the 5^th Circuit had reversed the dis­trict court’s deci­sion on pro­ce­dur­al grounds, say­ing that the dis­trict court should have deferred to the Louisiana state courts. It did not address the por­tion of the low­er court’s rul­ing that Brumfield was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. Brumfield’s case was then heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled by a 5 – 4 vote on June 18, 2015 that the dis­trict court had prop­er­ly grant­ed Brumfield a hear­ing on his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The Court held that Louisiana had unrea­son­ably deter­mined that Brumfield’s evi­dence was insuf­fi­cient to war­rant an evi­den­tiary hear­ing and remand­ed the case back to the 5^th Circuit with direc­tions to rule on the dis­trict court’s deter­mi­na­tion that Brumfield was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The cir­cuit court issued its rul­ing on December 16, 2015, stat­ing: ​“Both the state and Brumfield present plau­si­ble views of the evi­dence, although, on bal­ance, Brumfield’s wit­ness­es were some­what stronger and pre­sent­ed a slight­ly more com­pelling view…Because the State has not demon­strat­ed clear error on the part of the dis­trict court, we AFFIRM the rul­ing of the dis­trict court that Brumfield is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and, accord­ing­ly, inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion.” The new find­ing excludes Brumfield from exe­cu­tion under the Supreme Court’s 2002 rul­ing in Atkins v. Virginia, which found the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al disabilities unconstitutional.

(M. Lau, ​“Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers’ killer to be spared exe­cu­tion, 5^th Circuit pan­el rules,” The Advocate, December 16, 2015; Brumfield v. Cain, Opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, December 16, 2015.) See Intellectual Disability and U.S. Supreme Court.