The Supreme Court will consider new standards for applying the death penalty to the mentally disabled, agreeing this week to hear the case of an inmate slated for execution in Florida. Freddie Lee Hall was convicted of murder and sentenced to death 35 years ago by a judge who acknowledged him to be mentally disabled. The Supreme Court barred the execution of the mentally disabled in 2002, but Florida found that Hall faced execution nevertheless after he scored 71 on an IQ test—one point above the state’s cutoff for mental disability. Florida is one of nine death-penalty states with a strict IQ limit; a Supreme Court ruling could impose more uniform definitions for mental disability.
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