Supreme Court strikes down law setting strict I.Q. limit for execution

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NBC News — The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a law used by Florida and other states that set a strict cut-off, based on IQ test scores, to determine eligibility for the death penalty.

In the wake of the court’s earlier ruling that the states may not execute the “mentally retarded,” Florida determined that the dividing line would be an IQ of 70.

The defendant in the case at the center of Tuesday’s ruling, a convicted murderer named Freddie Lee Hall, had an IQ of 71 — so the state said he could be put to death.

But the high court, in a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, said such a line is too rigid.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the court’s opinion, said the experts who design, give and interpret IQ tests say they reveal only a range — that a person’s IQ may be five points above or below the score.

That means Hall could actually have an IQ of between 66 and 76. For that reason, the court held, he must be allowed to present evidence of his intellectual disability, including deficits in functioning over his lifetime.

“The death penalty is the gravest sentence our society may impose. Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution,” Kennedy wrote.

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