U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Kentucky Court in Intellectual Disability Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a Kentucky state court rul­ing that would have per­mit­ted the Commonwealth to exe­cute death-row pris­on­er Larry Lamont White (pic­tured) with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his claim that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. In a one-para­graph order issued on January 15, 2019, the Court grant­ed White’s peti­tion for review, vacat­ed the Kentucky Supreme Court​’s denial of his death-penal­ty appeal, and direct­ed the state court to recon­sid­er White’s eli­gi­bil­i­ty for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in light of the stan­dard for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty set forth in the jus­tices’ 2017 deci­sion in Moore v. Texas. Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissented.

White’s tri­al lawyers argued that he was inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, pro­vid­ing evi­dence from IQ test­ing con­duct­ed in 1971 when he was 12 years old. The tri­al court sum­mar­i­ly denied relief and the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, based on a Kentucky statute that required a cap­i­tal­ly-charged defen­dant to score 70 or below on an IQ test to be con­sid­ered intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The court said White could not be con­sid­ered intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled because his IQ score was 76. The court also relied upon White’s fil­ing of motions with­out the assis­tance of coun­sel to con­clude ​“that there is ample evi­dence of [White]‘s men­tal acu­men.” However, ten months after White’s appeal, the state court ruled that Kentucky’s statu­to­ry IQ cut­off vio­lat­ed Moore and the Eighth Amendment, hold­ing that ​“any rule of law that states that a crim­i­nal defen­dant auto­mat­i­cal­ly can­not be ruled intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and pre­clud­ed from exe­cu­tion sim­ply because he or she has an IQ of 71 or above, even after adjust­ment for sta­tis­ti­cal error, is unconstitutional.”

Justice Alito dis­sent­ed, cit­ing a pre­vi­ous dis­sent by the late Justice Antonin Scalia that the Supreme Court’s sum­ma­ry rever­sals for recon­sid­er­a­tion should be reserved for cas­es in which an inter­ven­ing fac­tor is present. Here, Alito argued, the Court should not have inter­vened because the Moore deci­sion ​“was hand­ed down almost five months before the Supreme Court of Kentucky reached a deci­sion in [White’s] case.” White’s lawyer, Kathleen Schmidt, praised the majority’s rul­ing, say­ing “[n]early 20 years ago, the Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty for the intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, in part out of con­cern that intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled defen­dants are more like­ly to be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for crimes they did not com­mit. We have sim­i­lar con­cerns in this case, and we are grate­ful that the Supreme Court has remand­ed the case to ensure that all issues in the case are ful­ly and properly litigated.”

(Amy Howe, No action on block­buster cas­es, SCOTUSblog, January 14, 2019; Associated Press, High Court: KY Death Row Inmate’s Case Should Get New Look, January 14, 2019; Brandi Buchman, Supreme Court Keeps Montana Campaign-Contribution Limits in Place, Courthouse News Service, January 14, 2019). See U.S. Supreme Court and Intellectual Disability.