Intellectual Disability

Additional Resources

DPIC Resources

Podcasts

Discussions With DPIC — Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty, With Law Professor John Blume (2016)
Discussions With DPIC — He May Be Innocent and Intellectually Disabled, But Rocky Myers Faces Execution in Alabama (2020)

Archival DPIC Content

Articles and Other Resources

Johnson, sheri Lynn, John H. Blume, and Brendan Van winkle. “Atkins v. Virginia at Twenty: Still Adaptive Deficits, Still in the Developmental Period.” Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 29 (2022): 55.
Kiel, Daniel. “Avoiding Atkins: How Tennessee is on the Verge of Unconstitutionally Executing an Individual with Intellectual Disabilities.” Law & Inequality (2020).
Shaw, Emily V., et al. “INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY, THE DEATH PENALTY, AND JURORS.” Jurimetrics, vol. 58, no. 4, pp.437-58. JSTOR (2018)
J. Blume, “Intellectual Disability, Innocence, Race, and the Future of the American Death Penalty.” Human Rights, vol. 42, no.2, pp.10-13. JSTOR (2017)
J. Blume, et al., “A TALE OF TWO (AND POSSIBLY THREE) ATKINS: INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT TWELVE YEARS AFTER THE SUPREME COURT’S CREATION OF A CATEGORICAL BAR,” 23 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 393 (2014).
Robert Schalock et al. in “The Renaming of Mental Retardation: Understanding the Change to the Term Intellectual Disability.” 45 Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 116 (2007)
”Timing Of IQ Test Can Be A Life Or Death Matter.” Science Daily Magazine, October 6, 2003 - Full text of a news release from Science Daily Magazine about the implications on death row inmates who are given IQ tests in years in which alterations to results are made to re-establish the mean score at 100.
“An Empirical Look at Atkins v. Virginia and Its Application in Capital Cases John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson and Christopher Seeds; Tennessee Law Review, Vol. 76:625; Spring 2009 - States: “We found 234 cases adjudicating the substance of Atkins claims, which implies that about seven percent of all death row inmates have filed Atkins claims… .Nearly forty percent of all defendants who allege mental retardation have, in fact, proved it.”
Model Legislation: “Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty: A Guide to State Legislative Issues” - for states to comply with the Atkins ruling, with commentary by Professor James Ellis, Univ. of New Mexico Law School.
The report, Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation, provides numerous examples of persons who have been sentenced to death despite their profound intellectual limitations.
“The Penry Penalty: Capital Punishment and Offenders with Mental Retardation” by Emily Fabrycki Reed; Lanham: University Press of America (1993).
“The Criminal Justice System and Mental Retardation: Defendants and Victims” by Ronald W. Conley, Ruth Luckasson, and George N. Bouthilet; Baltimore:Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. (1992).
Intellectual Competence & the Death Penalty (Blog)