The Legacy of Atkins v. Virginia and Its Impact on Fuston v. State

Article Figures & Data

Table 1

Decisions on Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty before Fuston v. State

Case	Decision
Penry v. Lynaugh (1989)¹	Defendants with intellectual disability eligible for execution
McCarver v. North Carolina (2001)³	Defendants with intellectual disability not eligible for execution
Atkins v. Virginia (2002)⁴	Defendants with intellectual disability not eligible for execution, consistent with states' decisions; indicated reasons why defendants with intellectual disability are not eligible for the death penalty (e.g., increased danger of false confessions, increased difficulty presenting mitigating evidence)
Hall v. Florida (2014)⁷	Accounted for the SEM in determining the FSIQ for intellectual disability in capital cases
Brumfield v. Cain (2015)¹⁰	Considered the upper limits of the SEM of FSIQ scores in Atkins' determinations
Moore v. Texas I (2017)¹³	Defined current medical manuals as the medical standards that states are required to use for the determination of intellectual disability; states determined intellectual disability if criteria were consistent with medical consensus
Moore v. Texas II (2019)¹⁹	Inclusion of adaptive functioning for the determination of intellectual disability in capital cases; considered adaptive deficits reported outside of a controlled setting (e.g., prison)