U.S. Supreme Court Finds Bobby Moore Ineligible for Execution

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that Bobby James Moore, who has been on death row in Texas since his conviction for the murder of a store clerk in 1980, is intellectually disabled according to accepted clinical diagnostic criteria and is therefore ineligible for capital punishment.

The ruling last month is the latest in an extraordinary legal saga focusing on how to ascertain whether an individual is intellectually disabled for purposes of determining eligibility for the death penalty. It marks a victory for APA, which has submitted a number of friend-of-the-court briefs over the years asserting the necessity of applying professionally accepted diagnostic standards for determining intellectual disability.

The ruling in the case would seem to mark the end of the efforts by Texas to apply the death penalty to Bobby James Moore. “We’re pleased to see the court settle on more clinically valid definitions for intellectual disability and render this death row inmate unsuitable for the death penalty as a result,” Debra Pinals, M.D., chair of the APA Council on Psychiatry and Law, told Psychiatric News. “We believe this case marks the end of the issue as the Texas court would need to convert his sentence to life imprisonment, and he would then be moved off death row. This does not end [Moore’s] own journey in the correctional system, but the Supreme Court decision is an important one that supported what we believe is the right direction regarding clinical issues in this case.”

(Also last month, the court ruled in another capital case, this time involving a defendant with dementia. The court remanded the case to the state to reconsider whether the defendant has a rational understanding of the state’s reasons for executing him. See box below.)

Moore was convicted and sentenced to death 39 years ago, but the epic legal debate surrounding his case had its origins in a 2002 ruling by the Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia. This case established that the execution of people with intellectual disability violated the Eighth Amendment. Moore claimed exemption from capital punishment under the ruling; however, Atkins had left unanswered the question of how intellectual disability was to be determined.

So began a protracted legal argument involving another Supreme Court ruling regarding the criteria to be used in determining intellectual disability, and several challenges by the state of Texas asserting that Moore was not intellectually disabled and could be executed. (For a timeline of legal rulings relevant to the Moore case and APA’s involvement, see box on page 7).

Most recently, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) last year found that Moore was not intellectually disabled according to criteria that the CCA claimed was consistent with professional standards, including those of APA, for determining intellectual disability. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying that in fact the state was continuing to apply nonclinical standards that the court had previously ruled inadmissible.

Those standards, advanced in a 2004 ruling by the CCA (just two years after Atkins), became known as the Briseno factors, after the name of the defendant. The Briseno criteria were highly idiosyncratic, relying on popular notions about intellectual disability, including characteristics drawn from fiction. The Supreme Court struck down the Briseno factors in 2017.

Last month, the court reminded the state that those standards remain unacceptable. “We conclude that the appeals court’s opinion, when taken as a whole and when read in the light both of our prior opinion and the trial court record, rests upon analysis too much of which too closely resembles what we previously found improper,” the court ruling states. “And extricating that analysis from the opinion leaves too little that might warrant reaching a different conclusion than did the trial court. We consequently agree with Moore that, on the basis of the trial court record, Moore has shown he is a person with intellectual disability.”

David Hathcox

Past APA President Paul Appelbaum, M.D., a corresponding member of the Council on Psychiatry and Law and a member of the APA Committee on Judicial Action, said the tone of the Supreme Court’s opinion is notable for its impatience with the Texas CCA for persisting in applying criteria already found unacceptable by the court.

“In general,” he said “the higher courts are not pleased when lower courts essentially ignore the opinion of the higher court and do again what they were told not to do.” (As a per curiam decision—meaning “by the court”—it is not known which of the justices wrote the majority opinion.)

It is also notable, Appelbaum said, that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote separately to concur with the more liberal block of justices ruling in favor of Moore. “The court repeated its improper reliance on the factors articulated in Ex parte Briseno. … That did not pass muster under this court’s analysis last time. It still doesn’t.”

Said Appelbaum, “That is about as angry as a Justice is likely to get in an opinion. There is no new territory staked out by the Supreme Court. They are simply saying, ‘We meant what we said last time, and we are not happy you didn’t listen to what we said.’ ”

Still more noteworthy, Appelbaum said, and also possibly indicative of the justices’ displeasure with the CCA, is that the court made a direct finding about Moore’s status—that he was, indeed, disabled—based upon facts in the court record. Typically, the court does not adjudicate facts but interprets the law as it applies to the facts. (The three justices who dissented from the opinion—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—cited this departure from the norm as a reason for their dissent.)

In particular, the court ruled that Texas relied too much on adaptive strengths demonstrated by Moore, rather than deficits, in determining that he was not intellectually disabled. And the justices, in the majority opinion, cited numerous facts revealed in the court record demonstrating that Moore was disabled.

“The justices have taken it out of the hands of the Texas court and reached a binding determination not subject to further review,” Appelbaum said. “They are not telling the Texas court ‘we have vacated your decision.’ Instead, they are themselves applying the right standard and saying ‘we agree with Moore that on the basis of the record he has shown he is a person with intellectual disability.’ ”

Appelbaum said the enduring principle established in the Supreme Court’s ruling is that intellectual disability is determined by standard clinical diagnostic criteria as spelled out by APA and the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disability. “Barring renegade decisions by other states, this issue is settled,” Appelbaum said. “The criteria that should be used are clear.” ■