Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The U.S. Supreme Court today declared a Florida rule used to determine if a person is mentally fit for execution to be unconstitutional.
The court has previously ruled that states cannot execute individuals deemed to have an intellectual disability. Florida had been using an I.Q. score of 70 as its determining factor. But the justices, in a 5-to-4 decision, said that was too rigid.
For more on the decision, we turn, as always, to Marcia Coyle of “The National Law Journal.”
Marcia.
MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal: Hi, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Great to have you back.
MARCIA COYLE: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Marcia, give us — just remind us of the background of this case. What was it about?
MARCIA COYLE: Well, Freddie Lee Hall had been convicted of murder, a murder that took place in 1978. He and another man had abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered a woman who was seven months pregnant in order to steal her car in connection with a robbery. They also later killed — shot and killed a police officer.
He’s really been on death row since I think about 1982. He brought the challenge to the Supreme Court today, that the court decided today, in which he said that Florida’s rigid 70 I.Q. score cutoff violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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