Entries tagged with “Hall v. Florida”
Issues
Jun 11, 2021
Georgia Supreme Court Upholds ‘Uniquely High and Onerous’ Burden of Proving Intellectual Disability in Death Penalty Cases
The Georgia Supreme Court has denied a constitutional challenge to the state’s statutory requirement that a capital defendant must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she is intellectually disabled before being declared ineligible for the death penalty. In an 8 – 1 ruling issued on June 1, 2021, the Georgia high court affirmed the conviction and death sentence imposed on Rodney Young. Young had argued that requiring a capital defendant to meet the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard — the…
Issues
Jun 13, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 8, 2020
NEWS (6/11/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court applied new cases that retroactively changed the law regarding claims of intellectual disability and the unconstitutionality of death sentences imposed after non-unanimous jury votes for death to uphold the death sentences imposed on Alphonso Cave and Gary Lawrence. Cave had been unconstitutionally sentenced to death three different times. Twice his death sentence had been overturned. He was sentenced to death a third time after a…
Issues
May 27, 2020
Florida Supreme Court Limits Enforcement of Supreme Court Decision Barring Execution of Intellectually Disabled Prisoners
For the third time in 2020, the Florida Supreme Court has reduced the constitutional protections afforded to death-row prisoners. In a May 21 decision in Phillips v. State, the court overturned its own case precedent and limited enforcement of a U.S. Supreme Court case that bars execution of intellectually disabled prisoners. The Miami Herald editorial board said the decision “shredded precedent” and “ignores clear and data-driven direction from the U.S. Supreme Court.” Dissenting Justice…
Issues
Feb 16, 2018
Is Racially Biased Testimony Wrongly Subjecting Intellectually Disabled Defendants to the Death Penalty?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia categorically bars states from executing any person who has Intellectual Disability. (Daryl Atkins is pictured.) However, as reported in recent stories in Pacific Standard Magazine and the newspaper, The Atlanta Black Star, some states have attempted to circumvent the Atkins ruling by using social stereotypes and race as grounds to argue that defendants of color are not intellectually disabled. Prosecutors in at least eight states…
Issues
May 19, 2017
STUDY: Juries Have Never Found Anyone Intellectually Disabled Under Georgia’s Insurmountable Standard of Proof
No death penalty jury has ever found a defendant charged with intentional murder to be ineligible for the death penalty under Georgia’s intellectual disability law, according to a new empirical study published in Georgia State University Law Review. The study, by Georgia State Law Professor Lauren Sudeall Lucas, examined 30 years of jury verdicts under the state’s Guilty But Mentally Retarded statute, which has the most onerous standard in the nation for proving intellectual disability.
Issues
Oct 21, 2016
Florida Supreme Court Rules Intellectual Disability Decision Applies Retroactively
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that death-row prisoners who had unsuccessfully argued that they are ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability must be provided a second chance to prove their claims. On October 20, the Court decided in Walls v. State that Florida must retroactively apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Hall v. Florida, which declared Florida’s procedures for determining intellectual disability to be unconstitutional. Prisoners whose…
Issues
May 27, 2014
Supreme Court Strikes Down Florida’s Strict IQ Cutoff for Death Penalty
On May 27, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Hall v. Florida that Florida’s strict IQ cutoff for determining intellectual disability in capital cases is unconstitutional. The Court concluded, “Florida’s law contravenes our Nation’s commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world.” In 2002, the Court banned the execution of people with “mental retardation,” but allowed states leeway in selecting a process for determining who would qualify for that…
Issues
Feb 24, 2014
Supreme Court to Examine Florida’s Narrow Standard for Mental Retardation
On March 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Hall v. Florida, a case addressing the strict standard for intellectual disability that Florida uses to determine if inmates are exempt from execution. Under the Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia, individuals with intellectual disabilities (mental retardation) are constitutionally barred from receiving the death penalty. The decision “le[ft] to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the…