Moore v. Texas (2017)

Moore v. Texas
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 29, 2016
Decided March 28, 2017
Full case nameBobby James Moore, Petitioner v. Texas
Citations581 U.S. ___ (more)
137 S. Ct. 1039; 197 L. Ed. 2d 416
ArgumentOral argument
Case history
PriorEx parte Moore, 470 S.W.3d 481 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); cert. granted, 136 S. Ct. 2407 (2016).
SubsequentEx parte Moore, 548 S.W.3d 552 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018); reversed and remanded, Moore v. Texas, 586 U.S. ___ (2019)
Holding
When deciding if an inmate on death row is qualified as "intellectually disabled", as under Atkins v. Virginia (2002), courts may not ignore dominant medical guidelines. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan
Case opinions
MajorityGinsburg, joined by Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
DissentRoberts, joined by Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. VIII

Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017), is a United States Supreme Court decision about the death penalty and intellectual disability. The court held that contemporary clinical standards determine what an intellectual disability is, and held that even milder forms of intellectual disability may bar a person from being sentenced to death due to the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The case clarified two earlier cases, Atkins v. Virginia (2002) and Hall v. Florida (2014).

Background

Texas has been influential in the development of capital punishment jurisprudence in the United States. Important landmark Supreme Court decisions like Penry v. Lynaugh (1993) have originated in Texas and the state has also come into conflict with the Supreme Court over the implementation of important decisions like Atkins v. Virginia.[1]: 2–3  The Atkins decision overturned Penry by holding that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional because no legitimate penological purpose is served by executing a person who is not able "to learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, or to control impulses".[2]: 230 

The Supreme Court left to the states the "task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon [their] execution of sentences" in the Ford v. Wainwright (1986) decision prohibiting the execution of insane prisoners; it did the same in Atkins.[1]: 29  Between 2003 and 2011 there were several failed proposals in the Texas Legislature to enact a statutory procedure for Atkins claims.[1]: 32–35  Texas had the highest volume of Atkins collateral review claims of any death penalty state at that time.[1]: 37  In 2004 the Texas state courts developed interim Atkins procedures in Ex parte Briseno.[1]: 40–42 

Without an agreed-upon statutory definition of "mental retardation" the Briseno Court attempted to "define that level and degree of mental retardation at which a consensus of Texas citizens would agree that a person should be exempted from the death penalty" by innovating seven additional evidentiary factors for assessing adaptive functioning deficits.[3][4]: 781 

Case background

Bobby James Moore was sentenced to death in 1980 for killing James McCarble during an attempted robbery of a grocery store in Houston, Texas.[5]

After Moore's conviction was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1985, he filed a habeas corpus petition claiming ineffective assistance of counsel in federal court.[6] He was granted a new sentencing hearing in 2001, one year before Atkins was decided, and was again sentenced to death. [4]: 781  Moore did not present any intellectual disability defense at the hearing.[6] Intellectual disability was raised for the first time in a state habeas petition filed after the Supreme Court decided Atkins.[4]: 782  The state habeas court ordered a two day evidentiary hearing in 2014 and, upon a finding of intellectual disability,recommended that Moore's death sentence be either vacated or turned into a life in prison sentence.[3]

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) instead affirmed Moore's death sentence after finding that his IQ was 78. Some of Moore's IQ test scores were under 75 but some were higher. The CCA only accepted the higher score.[7]: 215  The CCA held that the court below was required to apply the Briseno factors when deiciding whether adaptive functioning deficits were related to intellectual disability. The habeas court, applying an up-to-date standard, did not make a relatedness determination.[8][3] Following the state-implemented Atkins procedure, the state court found that Moore was not intellectually disabled .[7]: 215 

The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Decision

In a 5–3 decision authored by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg the Supreme Court concluded that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had relied on "wholly nonclinical" stereotypes and "failed adequately to inform itself of the medical community's diagnostic framework". The Court reversed the CCA decision because its analysis was "pervasively infected" by the Briseno factors.[9]: 1316 

First, the Supreme Court considered the CCA finding that Moore did not meet the subaverage intellectual functioning requirement of mental retardation. Explaining that an IQ of 70 was not a rigid cutoff, the Court found that Moore did met the IQ score requirement for intellectual disability:[7]: 216 [9]: 1329 

[In] line with Hall we require that courts continue the inquiry and consider other evidence of intellectual disability where an individual's IQ score, adjusted for the test's standard error, falls within the clinically established range for intellectual-functioning deficits.

For the adaptive functioning inquiry, the Court said the reliance on the Briseno factors "created an unacceptable risk of executing an intellectually disabled person" and that a "consensus of Texas citizens" could not exclude people with "mild" intellectual disability from the categorial exemption created by Atkins.[9]: 1321  The "arbitrary offsetting of deficits against unconnected strengths in which the [Texas Court of Criminal Appeals] engaged" was inconsistent with "prevailing clinical standards".[9]: 1315 

Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, joined by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.[10]: 791  He stated that Texas had considered the "prevailing clinical standards" when it crafted its death penalty scheme, and that states had a right to determine their own schemata for defining intellectual disability.[10]: 791  He also said the court's reliance on clinical standards, and not moral judgments, was at odds with Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.[10]: 791 

Later developments

On remand in 2018, the CCA again sentenced Moore to death.[11]: 5  Moore appealed to the Supreme Court, and they reversed the decision in a per curiam opinion in Moore v. Texas II, 139 S. Ct. 666 (2019).[11]: 5  They held that Moore was ineligible for death because of his intellectual disability; Chief Justice Roberts concurred, while Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissented.[11]: 5, 30 [12]

As of 2021, there were 28 states that still used the death penalty, and 19 of them cited Moore I or II.[11]: 31  Some courts followed Moore I and II clearly, while others did not.[11]: 92 

Notes and references

Notes

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Tobolowsky, Peggy (2011). "A Different Path Taken: Texas Capital Offenders' Post-Atkins Claims of Mental Retardation". Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. 39 (1).
  2. ^ Barger, Judith M. (2008). "Avoiding Atkins v. Virginia: How States are Circumventing Both the Letter and the Spirit of the Court's Mandate". Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law. doi:10.15779/Z389323.
  3. ^ a b c Maher, Robin (April 10, 2017). "Moore v. Texas: The Supreme Court Limits State Discretion to Make the "Protection of Human Dignity" a Reality for the Intellectually Disabled". The George Washington Law Review. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c Acker, James R. (July 17, 2018). "Snake Oil With A Bite: the Lethal Veneer of Science and Texas's Death Penalty". Albany Law Review. 81 (3). Retrieved November 3, 2024.
  5. ^ "Ex Parte Bobby James Moore, Applicant NO. WR–13,374–05". FindLaw.
  6. ^ a b Reiss, Josh; Smith, Lisa. "Atkins litigation in the wake of Ex parte Moore". Texas District & County Attorneys Association. Retrieved November 3, 2024.
  7. ^ a b c Kassoff, Alexander (2024). "How Far Have Standards of Decency Evolved in Fifteen Years? An Update on Atkins Jurisprudence in Mississippi". Mississippi College Law Review. 37 (3).
  8. ^ "Ex Parte Moore (2015) 470 S.W.3d 481".
  9. ^ a b c d Ellis, James; Everington, Caroline; Delpha, Ann (2018). "Evaluating Intellectual Disability: Clinical Assessments in Atkins Cases". Hofstra Law Review. 46 (4).
  10. ^ a b c Barker, Clinton M. (April 2017). "Substantial guidance without substantive guides: resolving the requirements of Moore v. Texas and Hall v. Florida". Vanderbilt Law Review. 70 (3): 1027–1070.
  11. ^ a b c d e Updegrove, Alexander (2021). "The development of intellectual disabilities in United States capital cases and the modern application of "Moore v. Texas" to state court decisions". University of Massachusetts Law Review. 16 (2): 2–97.
  12. ^ Moore v. Texas, 139 S. Ct. 666 (2019).