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The Development Of Intellectual Disabilities In United States Capital Cases And The Modern Application Of Moore V. Texas To State Court Decisions, Dr. Alexander Updegrove

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Although in 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States initially held that the Eighth Amendment did not prohibit executing persons with intellectual disabilities in Penry v. Lynaugh, in 2002 it subsequently reversed this decision in Atkins v. Virginia, citing changing state legislation. Since the Atkins decision, state courts have interpreted the Court’s Atkins provisions in a variety of ways, some more faithfully than others. As a result, the Court provided additional clarification in its 2014 and 2015 Hall v. Florida and Brumfield v. Cain decisions, ruling that states must apply a Standard Error of Measurement of +5/-5 to all …