Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Intellectually Disabled Louisiana Defendant

CORRECTION: On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Brumfield v. Cain, a Louisiana death penalty case dealing with intellectual disability. The Court held that the federal district court was entitled to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Kevan Brumfield has intellectual disability and is therefore ineligible for execution. It reversed a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that would have deferred to a Lousiana state court decision permitting Brumfield to be executed without a hearing on his claim of intellectual disability. After an extensive evidentiary hearing, the district court held that Brumfield was intellectually disabled. By a vote of 5 – 4, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana had unreasonably determined the facts when it decided that Brumfield had not presented sufficient evidence of intellectual and adaptive impairments to warrant an evidentiary hearing in state court. Writing for the majority, Justice Sotomayor said, “After Atkins was decided, petitioner, a Louisiana death-row inmate, requested an opportunity to prove he was intellectually disabled in state court. Without affording him an evidentiary hearing or granting him time or funding to secure expert evidence, the state court rejected petitioner’s claim. That decision, we hold, was ‘based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.’ Petitioner was therefore entitled to have his Atkins claim considered on the merits in federal court.” The case returns to the Fifth Circuit for consideration of whether the district court’s findings are supported by the record.

(Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. ____, 2015.) See Intellectual Disability and U.S. Supreme Court.

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