Supreme Court To Examine IQ Testing In Death Penalty Decisions

The Supreme Court, which has previously ruled in favor of states deciding a cutoff for deciding mental disability in prosecuting and sentencing those accused of capital crimes.  But that may change this year.

As Huffington Post reports,

“In arguments Monday, 68-year-old Florida inmate Freddie Lee Hall is challenging the state’s use of a rigid IQ cutoff to determine mental disability.

Florida is among a few states that use a score of 70, as measured by IQ tests, as the threshold for concluding an inmate is not mentally disabled, even when other evidence indicates he is.

‘Simply put, IQ tests are not a perfect measure of a person’s intellectual ability,’ Hall’s lawyers told the court in written arguments.

In nine tests administered between 1968 and 2008, Hall scored as low as 60 and as high as 80, with his most recent scores between 69 and 74, according to the state.

A judge in an earlier phase of the case concluded Hall’had been mentally retarded his entire life.’ Psychiatrists and other medical professionals who examined him said he is mentally disabled.”

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