The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed a writ of cer­tio­rari in Brumfield v. Cain, a death penal­ty case from Louisiana deal­ing with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. Kevan Brumfield was sen­tenced to death pri­or to the Court’s deci­sion in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), which banned the exe­cu­tion of defen­dants with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. After that rul­ing, Brumfield filed a claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty in state court. The court denied him a hear­ing because the tri­al tran­script showed no evi­dence of his dis­abil­i­ty. A fed­er­al dis­trict court found that the state court had ​“mis­tak­en­ly – and unrea­son­ably– con­sid­ered the record from Petitioner’s pre-Atkins penal­ty phase as deter­mi­na­tive of Petitioner’s men­tal retar­da­tion claim under Atkins,” grant­ed Brumfield a hear­ing, and found him to be intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and there­fore exempt from exe­cu­tion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the fed­er­al dis­trict court’s deci­sion. Brumfield’s attor­neys said, ​“As a result of this deci­sion, the com­pelling evi­dence pre­sent­ed to the dis­trict court will be ignored, and a per­son who was found to be men­tal­ly retard­ed will be exe­cut­ed.” The Supreme Court will deter­mine whether Brumfield should have been grant­ed a hear­ing on his claim of intellectual disability.

(R. Barnes, ​“Supreme Court to hear Confederate-flag license plate case from Texas,” Washington Post, December 5, 2014; Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Brumfield v. Cain.) See Intellectual Disability and U.S. Supreme Court.

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