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Speaker 1: I'm Greg's Store with June Grasso in New York. Today,

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Speaker 1: a divided U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of

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Speaker 1: a Texas death row inmate. The majority said the state

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Speaker 1: had violated the Constitution by disregarding the most up to

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Speaker 1: date standards for determining whether someone is intellectually disabled and

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Speaker 1: therefore an ineligible for capital punishment under a previous Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court ruling. The five three decision could mean a new

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Speaker 1: sentencing for Bobby James Moore, who was convicted of shooting

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Speaker 1: and killing a store clerk in a nine eight robbery.

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Speaker 1: With us to discuss the ruling and what its implications

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Speaker 1: might be. Our Virginia Sloan, president and founder of the

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Speaker 1: Constitution Project, and Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death

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Speaker 1: Penalty Information Center. Welcome to you both, Um, rob let's

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Speaker 1: start with you. Just tell us, tell us who Bobby

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Speaker 1: James Moore is, in his background, and why we're even

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Speaker 1: talking about whether he is eligible for the death penalty. Well,

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Speaker 1: Bobby James Moore is a Texas throw prisoner, and he

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Speaker 1: he was sentenced to death although there were serious questions

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Speaker 1: about whether he had intellectual disability. The United States Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court ruled in two thousand two that you can't execute

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Speaker 1: people who have intellectual disability, and the Texas Trial Court

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Speaker 1: who heard Bobby James Moore's claim applied the looked at

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Speaker 1: the clinical definitions of of intellectual disability and found that

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Speaker 1: he had met them. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

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Speaker 1: instead of substituted a set of standards called the Brastinio factors,

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Speaker 1: which are an unscientific group of essentially laced earteotypes UH

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Speaker 1: and UH and said that he had not proven intellectual disability,

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Speaker 1: so the case came up to the United States Streame

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Speaker 1: Court essentially decide whether he could be facing a despitally

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Speaker 1: or not. Jenny Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote the majority opinion,

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Speaker 1: tell us what her reasoning was. Well, the reasoning was

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Speaker 1: that the UH Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had not

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Speaker 1: relied on the medical standards that were the latest and

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Speaker 1: up to date UM standards for determining when someone is

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Speaker 1: intellectually disabled and had instead relied on outdated and judicially

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Speaker 1: crafted UH standards. UH that just don't m mean anything.

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Speaker 1: They're not judicially significant, they're not legally significant, and UH

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Speaker 1: they don't determine whether anyone is intellectually disabled or not.

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Speaker 1: ROB your organization tracks the death penalty pretty closely. How

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Speaker 1: what are the implications of this ruling both throughout Texas

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Speaker 1: and other states? Is this just a case where these

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Speaker 1: standards were applied in Bobby Moore's case or UM? Have

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Speaker 1: they been applied and are they being applied elsewhere? It

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Speaker 1: will have I think the opinion has um impact both

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Speaker 1: in Texas and across the country. UH. The impact in

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Speaker 1: Texas is that Texas has applied UH these factors which

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Speaker 1: are called the pristinio factors, which are named after a

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Speaker 1: particular case UH, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

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Speaker 1: has substituted these lay factors for the clinical definitions of

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Speaker 1: intellectual disability that's been the law in Texas. So this

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Speaker 1: will affect every case UH in Texas UH in which

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Speaker 1: a defendant has made allegations that he has intellectual disability.

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Speaker 1: But the broader language in the case I think provides

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Speaker 1: substantial guidance in intellectual disabilities determinations across the country. UM.

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Speaker 1: This is not the first time that the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court has stepped into overturn UH state intellectual disability

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Speaker 1: determination that was unrelated to the medical and mental health

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Speaker 1: definitiy of intellectual disability. In All versus Florida, the Court

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Speaker 1: had stepped in to say that you could not adopt

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Speaker 1: a hard seventy i Q cut off and say that

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Speaker 1: if you had any test scores of that, you couldn't

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Speaker 1: qualify as having intellectual disability. That had no support in

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Speaker 1: the scientific community. Uh. The senior factors things like, UM,

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Speaker 1: can you lie successfully or did other people who knew

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Speaker 1: you growing up I think that you had intellectual disability? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Those have nothing to do with the scientific determination of

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Speaker 1: intellectual disability either. And so by striking this down, the

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Speaker 1: Court has reiterated that states may have some discretion in

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Speaker 1: deciding whether someone has an intellectual disability, but they don't

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Speaker 1: have discretion to completely disregard the standards of the of

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Speaker 1: the scientific and medical communities. Jenny in in about a minute.

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Speaker 1: Is this decision moving the court along toward eliminating differences

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Speaker 1: in how states decide who is intellectually disabled? Absolutely, Texas

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Speaker 1: was a real outlier in UH using these outdated, non

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Speaker 1: medical related um UM factors and and UH to the

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Speaker 1: extent that other states are not up to date as well, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's going to help them to determine what what factors

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Speaker 1: is that they should use. And it also may apply retroactively,

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Speaker 1: so that people who are on uh Texas death Row

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Speaker 1: who have these kinds of claims may be able to

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Speaker 1: use this decision to um determine whether they are in

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Speaker 1: fact intellectually disabled. So it's it could have a wide

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Speaker 1: spread uhum impact. I want to thank our guests Virginia

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Speaker 1: Sloan that she's the president and founder of the Constitution Project,

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Speaker 1: and Robert Dunham who's the executive director of the Death

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Speaker 1: Penalty Information Centered talking about the new Supreme Court decision

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Speaker 1: it's called More versus Texas, just issued today on the

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Speaker 1: death penalty in Texas.