APA Files Brief Supporting Defendant in Long-Running Moore Case

Adaptive strengths, especially those acquired and demonstrated in a controlled environment, are not sufficient to exclude a diagnosis of intellectual disability.

That’s what APA wrote in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Bobby James Moore, who has been on death row in Texas since his conviction for the murder of a store clerk in 1980. It is the latest in a long legal saga centering on whether Moore is intellectually disabled and therefore exempt from capital punishment, as well as the means for determining a diagnosis of intellectual disability.

Last June, a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) ruled that Moore could not be found intellectually disabled because of certain adaptive strengths he demonstrated. In a new appeal to the Supreme Court last November, APA argued that reliance on evidence of adaptive strengths is misleading and that there is sufficient evidence of intellectual deficits that Moore should be exempt from execution.

“The CCA opinion focused at length on Mr. Moore’s adaptive strengths in the areas of communication and language skills,” APA wrote. “However, it is inappropriate to focus exclusively on individual adaptive strengths or to conclude that the presence of such strengths precludes a finding of intellectual disability. Instead, evidence of a person’s deficits should be the focus when diagnosing intellectual disability.

“Mental health professionals agree that intellectual disability should be diagnosed whenever there are sufficient deficits in adaptive functioning. That remains true even if the individual has relative strengths in other areas. Phrased differently, the presence of relative strengths in some spheres of behavior is not conclusive evidence that a person does not have intellectual disability.”

Moreover, APA argued that to the extent that adaptive capacities are taken into account, they should be those that are demonstrated in a typical setting, not in a controlled setting such as a prison.

“Reliance on adaptive strengths developed in the controlled setting of a prison should be limited, especially when other information is available,” according to the APA brief. “It is widely accepted that people with intellectual disability can learn and that they are more likely to do so in a structured environment with clear rules—like a prison. Thus, the fact that an individual is able to develop relative strengths in prison is of limited utility when assessing that individual’s typical adaptive functioning.”

Marvin Swartz, M.D., chair of the APA Committee on Judicial Action, said Moore is “an important case about competency to be executed in a man with IDD [intellectual and developmental disabilities].” He added, “While there is broad consensus among experts that no precise numeric threshold or IQ score should be used to determine intellectual disability, the Texas courts have continued to use antiquated and idiosyncratic definitions.”

Moore’s claim to be exempt from execution rests on the landmark 2002 Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia in which the court ruled that execution of intellectually disabled individuals violates the Eighth Amendment.

However, Atkins left open the question of how a state would determine whether someone was intellectually disabled. In 2004, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals adopted its own idiosyncratic standards (known as “Briseno factors,” for the case Ex parte Briseno) for determining intellectual disability that were regarded by APA and other professional groups as unrelated to clinically accepted standards (Psychiatric News, January 3, 2017). The Briseno decision was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Last year the Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals’ judgment, stating that adjudications of intellectual disability should be “informed by the views of medical experts.” Moreover, the court said that the several factors set out in Briseno as indicators of intellectual disability are “an invention of the [court] untied to any acknowledged source.”

The court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeals. The Texas court applied the framework in DSM-5 for determining intellectual disability but still found Moore did not meet the criteria for intellectual disability, citing evidence of some adaptive learning the defendant has demonstrated during his time in jail.

Debra Pinals, M.D., chair of the APA Council on Psychiatry and Law, said the principles in the brief are important with regard to diagnostic issues for intellectual disability.

“The APA brief spells out the problems of limiting information for diagnosis to certain adaptive skills or those solely examined in a highly structured prison environment,” she told Psychiatric News. “The stakes in this case are obviously high, and we hope this brief from several key organizations will help the Court be better informed for its deliberations.”

Joining APA in the amicus were the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. ■

Amicus curiae briefs filed by APA can be accessed here.