Supreme court sides with death row inmate who claims intellectual disability

Posted on March 28, 2017

Ruling stated that Texas used outdated medical criteria to make decide that Bobby James Moore, convicted for 1980 murder, does not have mental disability.

 
ruth bader ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Texas’s appeals court ignored current medical standards. The supreme court ruled in 2002 that those convicted of murder who are intellectually disabled cannot be executed. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Associated Press

The supreme court on Tuesday sided with a Texas death row inmate who claims he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled.

The justices, by a 5-3 vote, reversed a Texas appeals court ruling that said inmate Bobby James Moore was not intellectually disabled.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her majority opinion that Texas’s top criminal appeals court ignored current medical standards and required use of outdated criteria when it decided Moore isn’t mentally disabled.C That ruling removed a legal hurdle to Moore’s execution for the shotgun slaying of a Houston grocery store clerk in 1980.

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