The Death Penalty, Intellectual Disability, and Warrick Dunn

The United States Supreme Court just decided a capital case about intellectual disability, formerly known as mental retardation. In some ways, it’s an “error correction” case that doesn’t break new doctrinal ground. But it stands out for two reasons. First, it may be indicative of the current Court’s attitude towards the death penalty. And second, Justice Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion focused in large part on former professional football player Warrick Dunn. Facts. The case is Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. __ (2015). The defendant and an accomplice shot and killed an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard, escorting a grocery store manager to the bank to make a deposit. Procedural history. The defendant was convicted of murder. At his capital sentencing hearing, he introduced evidence that he had an IQ of 75, read at the fourth grade level, and had been placed in special education classes. Despite this mitigating evidence, he was sentenced to death. After the Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) (holding that the imposition of the death penalty on the intellectually disabled violates the Eighth Amendment), the defendant requested an evidentiary hearing in Louisiana state court on the issue of intellectual disability, and sought funds for investigation in anticipation of the hearing. The state court denied him both the funding and the hearing, finding that his preliminary showing did not provide a reasonable ground to believe that he may be intellectually disabled. A federal district court ruled otherwise, taking [...]