Ohio Supreme Court Rules Defendant with Mental Retardation May Not Be Executed
On April 9, 2008, the Supreme Court of Ohio reversed decisions by the trial and appellate courts which would have subjected Clifton White to the death penalty. The trial court previously found that Mr. White's adaptive behavior skills were not sufficiently impaired to establish him as a person with mental retardation protected from execution by the United State Supreme Court's ruling in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), 536 U.S. 304. The appeal was brought by the Ohio Public Defender.
Ohio Legal Rights Service (OLRS) attorney Jane Perry, representing both OLRS and The Arc of Ohio, filed an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief in August 2006 to urge the Supreme Court to overturn the lower courts' decisions. OLRS and The Arc of Ohio argued that the trial court disregarded the scientifically-based conclusions of mental health professionals, and further applied its own stereotypical assumptions about the ways people with mental retardation behave.
The trial court presumed from testimony of Mr. White's reported popularity in school and his ability to cook, drive, and play games requiring coordination, that he could therefore not be a person with mental retardation sufficient to invoke the constitutional protection of Atkins.
OLRS and The Arc of Ohio, in their brief, informed the Ohio Supreme Court that people with mental retardation can cook, clean, buy clothes, live in apartments or homes in the community, fall in love, work, and pay the rent, as Mr. White did. To apply the trial court's reasoning that these capacities can not possibly be associated with mental retardation, and therefore Mr. White could not be protected under Atkins, was an abuse of the court's discretion and a demonstration of its stigmatizing beliefs. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed, focusing on expert testimony that people with mental retardation, "may look relatively normal in some areas and have significant limitations in other areas." The court concluded that, "[m]ildly retarded persons can play sports, write, hold jobs, and drive …
[i]n determining whether a person is mentally retarded, one must focus on those adaptive skills the person lacks, not on those he possesses." State v. White, No 2008-Ohio-1623, § 65.
For more information
Read the Ohio Supreme Court's opinion: The State of Ohio, Appellee, v. White, Appellant (PDF file)
Read the friend-of-the-court brief: Brief of the Ohio Legal Rights Service and The Arc of Ohio as amici curiae Supporting Appellant White (PDF file)
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Article posted April 9, 2008
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