Case Involving Determination of Intellectual Disability Stretches Across Decades

1980. Bobby James Moore is convicted of killing a store clerk in the course of a robbery, and a jury in Texas sentences him to death.

2002. In a 6-3 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. However, the ruling leaves open to the states how to determine whether an individual is intellectually disabled.

2004. In Ex parte Briseno, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals develops a set of its own criteria (Briseno factors, named for the defendant Jose Garcia Briseno) for determining intellectual disability in a capital case. They appear to be highly idiosyncratic and unrelated to any known clinical criteria.

2004. A second case reaching the Supreme Court in 2004 (Hall v. Florida) establishes a precedent that becomes relevant to answering the question of how to determine intellectual disability. At issue in the case is whether the state of Florida was justified in relying on a single score on an IQ test for determining intellectual disability, a criterion that differs from criteria set forth by APA (which submitted an amicus brief in the case) and the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disability (AAIDD). The APA and AAIDD criteria emphasize that a single score on an IQ test is not sufficient to assess intellectual disability; instead, a comprehensive assessment of intellectual and adaptive functioning using contemporary standards by a mental health professional is necessary. In Hall v. Florida, the Court ruled that Florida’s criteria are not in accordance with the more comprehensive criteria of APA and the AAIDD and therefore fail to protect from execution individuals who might be intellectually disabled.

2017. A Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that Moore was eligible for execution—applying the Briseno factors the CCA had developed in ex parte Briseno—is appealed to the Supreme Court. APA argues in an amicus brief filed on behalf of Moore that the Briseno factors are completely without clinical validity. “The court … cited no mental health or medical authority as the basis for these factors, instead alluding to a fictional character [Lennie Small] in John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men as the basis for its reasoning about intellectual disability diagnosis,” according to the APA brief. The court rules in Moore’s and APA’s favor, remanding the case to the Court of Appeals.

June 2018. The Texas CCA on remand again finds Moore to be not disabled and therefore eligible for execution, claiming to base its determination this time on the accepted professional diagnostic criteria established in Hall v. Florida.

November 2018. In a second appeal to the Supreme Court, APA files an amicus brief stating that the Texas CCA relied in its determination too heavily on adaptive strengths exhibited by the defendant and on criteria that continue to be inconsistent with standard diagnostic criteria. “[I]t is inappropriate to focus exclusively on individual adaptive strengths or to conclude that the presence of such strengths precludes a finding of intellectual disability.”

January 2019. The Supreme Court rules in favor of Moore and APA, asserting that the state was still relying on the Briseno factors already deemed unacceptable by the court. The court also cites evidence from the court record that Moore is, indeed, disabled. ■