Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty, With Law Professor John Blume

Discussions With DPI

As the U.S. Supreme Court pre­pares to hear oral argu­ment in Moore v. Texas and con­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s approach to decid­ing whether a defen­dant is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, Cornell Law School Professor John Blume joins us to share his exper­tise on intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and the death penal­ty. He pro­vides con­text on the Supreme Court’s 2002 deci­sion, Atkins v. Virginia, which banned the exe­cu­tion of defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, and describes the clin­i­cal cri­te­ria used in most deter­mi­na­tions of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In the sec­ond half of the con­ver­sa­tion, Professor Blume explains Texas’ idio­syn­crat­ic method for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, the back­ground of the Moore case, and how the Court’s deci­sion in Moore may affect the death penal­ty sys­tem in Texas and other states.