
DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC
Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty, With Law Professor John Blume
Overview
While stopping short of abolishing the death penalty, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken measures to limit its applicability so that it is used primarily in cases where the defendant had the most culpability. People with intellectual disability are not in that group. Occasionally, states, too, determined that the death penalty could be too harsh as applied to some defendants, and many passed laws exempting people with limited intellectual ability from the death penalty.
The mental health community has provided clear criteria for a finding of intellectual disability: significant limitation in intellectual ability and adaptive behavior, manifesting itself prior to the age of 18.
Although the question of a national ban on the use of capital punishment for those with intellectual disability was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1989 because so few states had taken action on their own, the issue re-emerged in 2002 with a new consensus. Thirty states had either ended the use of the death penalty entirely, or at least for those with intellectual disabilities. In Atkins v. Virginia, the Court held that the nation’s standards of decency had evolved to the point where no such executions should occur. It also concluded that there was little if any deterrent or retributive effect from executing such defendants.
At Issue
The Atkins case was a seminal moment in the history of the death penalty, not only because it spared the lives of a vulnerable class of defendants, but it also provided a blueprint for achieving other limitations on the practice, or even for eliminating it altogether. Even after the Court’s decision in 2002, some states continued to use arcane practices in the determination of intellectual disability, so further supervision has been required.
What DPIC Offers
DPIC traces the history of this important ruling, noting the legislative efforts in various states and the pivotal cases that brought this issue to the fore. It provides access to some of the research regarding how many defendants with intellectual disability have been removed from death row and how states apply this ruling at differing times during the process leading up to sentencing.
News & Developments
News
Jul 14, 2023
Serious Concerns Raised After Discovery of Death Penalty Appeals Overlooked for Decades By Texas Courts

The Harris County District Clerk’s Office is attempting to resolve nearly one-hundred criminal appeals, including two death penalty cases, that were overlooked by the court system for decades. Among them are the appeals of the two death-sentenced prisoners, Tony Tyrone Dixon and Syed Rabbani.
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Aug 31, 2023
Court Ruling Makes Formerly Death-Sentenced Pervis Payne Eligible for Parole in Four Years
On August 30, 2023, the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that formerly death-sentenced prisoner Pervis Payne can serve his two life sentences concurrently, making him eligible to apply for parole in less than four years. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan resentenced Mr. Payne in 2022 to two life sentences with the possibility of parole after prosecutors conceded that they could not disprove Mr. Payne’s claim that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The state appealed Judge Skahan’s ruling,…
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Aug 15, 2023
Charles Ogletree, Death Penalty Scholar and Criminal Defense Advocate, Dies at 70
Charles Ogletree, Jr., a passionate advocate for racial and criminal justice, died on August 4, 2023, after a long illness. As a tenured professor at Harvard University, Professor Ogletree spoke and wrote often about the death penalty and mentored many students, including both Barack and Michelle Obama. In a 2014 Washington Post op-ed, he criticized the use of the death penalty in the United States, particularly for people with severe mental illness, brain impairments, or who suffer from the effects of severe trauma. He noted that “barring the death penalty…
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Mar 08, 2023
Texas Withdraws Execution Date to Allow for Mental Competency Consideration
A Grayson County, Texas court has withdrawn the April 5, 2023 execution date for Andre Thomas (pictured), a seriously mentally ill prisoner whose legal team requested more time to demonstrate that Thomas is incompetent to be executed. While incarcerated, Thomas gouged out his own eyes and claimed divine direction for his crimes. More than 100 religious leaders, along with other experts, had asked Gov. Greg Abbott to halt Thomas’ execution.
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Feb 24, 2023
MENTAL ILLNESS: President of the Tennessee Psychiatric Association Urges Halt to Death Penalty for Mentally Ill Defendants
In an op-ed in The Tennessean, Dr. Keith Caruso, President of the Tennessee Psychiatric Association, shared the reasons behind the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) opposition to capital punishment for those with severe mental illness.
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Feb 20, 2023
Upcoming Executions Raise Concerns about Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
The cases of two defendants facing imminent execution raise concerns about the appropriateness of death sentences for those with severe mental illness or sharply-limiting mental disabilities. Andre Thomas is scheduled for execution on April 5, 2023 in Texas, despite suffering from mental illness so acute that he cut out both of his eyes and ate one, claiming that it was necessary to prevent the government from hearing his thoughts. Donald Dillbeck is scheduled for execution in Florida on February 23, even though he is inflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder accompanied by disabilities similar to those the…
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Nov 17, 2022
Tennessee Attorney General’s Office Continues to Oppose Local Prosecutors Who Concede that Death-Row Prisoner Is Intellectually Disabled
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office attempted to preserve a trial court ruling denying Byron Black’s intellectual disability claim, arguing before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) on November 8. Black’s attorneys argue that a new law entitles him to relief from his death sentence because of his intellectual disability, and the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office agrees. However, a trial judge denied Black’s claim because it had been previously raised when Tennessee was applying unconstitutional standards to determine intellectual disability.
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Oct 28, 2022
Florida Study Documents Disproportionate Exclusion of Black Jurors in Jacksonville Death Penalty Cases
Two-thirds of Black women and more than half of Black men have been struck from jury service in Duval County death penalty cases, more than double the rate at which white prospective jurors are excluded, a study of capital jury selection in the Florida county has found.
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Oct 07, 2022
Atkins at 20: Assessing the Purported Ban on Executing Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities
In its landmark decision in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the use of the death penalty against individuals with intellectual disability constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Twenty years later, however, “there is not just the risk, but the certainty” that states continue to sentence intellectually disabled defendants to death, three legal scholars argue, and the federal courts are letting them get away with it.
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Sep 13, 2022
Alabama Court Upholds Fifth Non-Unanimous Death Sentence Imposed on Intellectually Impaired Man Over the Course of Six Penalty Trials for the Same Crime
An Alabama appeals court has upheld a fifth non-unanimous death sentence imposed on a death-row prisoner who has faced six capital sentencing trials for the same offense and was once found to be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability.
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Aug 09, 2022
Shelby County Voters Oust Prosecutor Who Sought to Execute Pervis Payne
Tennessee voters have issued a stunning rebuke to controversial Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich (pictured), ousting her from office after an eleven-year tenure marred by charges of racism and misconduct.
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