Clearly this decision demonstrates that perfecting and pursuing a federal habeas corpus claim is complicated. As I now understand matters, The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals previously had addressed Mathis' claim of MR/ID, but not in an Atkins context in 2005. At that time the court stated:
The evidence presented to the state trial court showed Mathis to have a low range of intelligence but all above the threshold for mental retardation. Specifically, the expert’s report indicated that Mathis’ full scale I.Q. was 79, his verbal I.Q. was 77 and his performance I.Q. was 85. Testing performed by a psychologist for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice after his conviction reflect different results. Those results show Mathis to have a full scale I.Q. of 62, verbal I.Q. of 65 and a performance I.Q. of 60. The district court held that Mathis failed to present evidence that reasonable counsel, at the time of trial, would have investigated his possible mental retardation further.
One may suspect the reasoning involved and greater insight requires examining the specifics of the intellectual testing history of Mathis. According to the habeas corpus petition (p. 8-9) Mathis' IQ of 79 was obtained on the WISC-R in 1991--- if a Flynn Effect "adjustment" had been invoked, the score should be approximately 70. Hmmmm.....is it possible that the appeals court, which already dismissed the MR/ID claim in 2005 simply did not want to address it again?
Technorati Tags: psychology, forensic psychology, forensic psychiatry, neuropsychology, intelligence, school psychology, psychometrics, educational psychology, IQ, IQ tests, IQ scores, adaptive behavior, adaptive functioning, intellectual disability, mental retardation, MR, ID, criminal psychology, criminal defense, criminal justice, ABA, Atkins cases, Atkins death penalty, American Bar Association, Atkins cases, death penalty, capital punishment, AAIDD, Atkins MR/ID listserv, ICDP blog, psychiatry, psychiatry and criminal justice, Mathis v Thaler, Mathis v Texas, Flynn effect
