WASHINGTON, Mar 3: A lawyer for a Florida inmate argued today at the US Supreme Court that he is intellectually disabled and therefore should not be executed, highlighting the issue of the mentally ill on death row.
Freddie Lee Hall, 68, has spent 35 years on death row for the rape and murder of a pregnant woman and is likely to be executed if his appeal fails.
In June 2002, the US top court barred states from executing intellectually disabled inmates, but until now left what determined that to the states themselves. In Florida, a person with an IQ of 70 or more is deemed criminally competent to be executed.
Hall has an IQ of 71, but was declared “mentally retarded” since childhood.
Part of his appeal rests on the fact that he falls within a five-percent margin of error cited by psychiatrists and experts when assessing IQ scores, and that an IQ test alone is not enough to judge whether someone is “mentally retarded” or not. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel