- Hearn v TX (2010): Dale Watson and Stephen Greenspan served as experts in this case. They are two of the experts I've listed at the ICDP Professional Experts blogroll. I personally know they are top-notch experts, so I would recommend reading this decision to capture the essence of their logic, data and testimony. I plan to when I can.
- Dunn v LA (2010): Lots of discussion of the use of the Flynn Effect adjustment of IQ scores. If you want to get a feel for the pro/con arguments regarding the courts handling of the FE, check the rather lengthy concurring opinion.
- Rodrigues v Cook (CA, 2010): Apparently a case where the state stipulated that Rodrigues was MR/ID.
- Lizcano v TX (2010) This is a long decision. Of significant interest is the concurring/dissenting opinion of one judge, joined in by two other judges, who question the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the so-called Texas Briseno factors - the court imposed adaptive behavior factors in Texas. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (9 judges) is the highest court in the state for criminal cases, so 6 judges appear to uphold the Briseno factors. According to the dissenting-concurring opinion--very interesting.
"The Court's scattershot approach to adaptive deficits--letting the fact-finder hunt and peck among adaptive deficits, unfettered by the specific diagnostic criteria that inform the expert opinion--will allow some capital offenders whom every rational diagnostician would find meets the clinical definition of mental retardation to be executed simply because they demonstrate a few pronounced adaptive strengths along with their manifest adaptive deficits. Better, I think, to be over-inclusive and mistakenly sentence some borderline intelligent capital offenders to the not-inconsiderable penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole than to inadvertently execute even a single mildly mentally retarded offender in violation of the strictures of the Eighth Amendment."
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