State of Texas, Respondent
Scott A. Keller, Texas Solicitor General
After the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the death penalty for those with intellectual disabilities in 2002, the Texas court system devised a method for determining intellectual capacity that relied on clinical standards first developed in 1992. A trial court in 2014, however, did not apply these standards to Bobby James Moore, who was claiming intellectual incapacity as part of a challenge to his death sentence for murder. Instead, the court used newer research to find that Moore had an IQ lower than the level the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled was necessary to qualify for execution. In 2015, the Texas…
