Intellectual Disability

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,…

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…

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.