U.S. Supreme Court Sides Condemned Inmate On IQ Issue
TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - A man on Florida's Death Row for a 1981 murder in Palm Beach County won a legal round this week.
Because of questions about whether inmate Jerry Haliburton is intellectually disabled, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the Florida Supreme Court for further consideration. The order referred to a ruling earlier this year in which the U.S. Supreme Court found fault with the way Florida has determined whether Death Row inmates are intellectually disabled, which in past terminology was known as mentally retarded.
The high court in the earlier case found that Florida had improperly used a "rigid" IQ score of 70 in determining whether defendants are intellectually disabled. For more than a decade, it has been deemed unconstitutional to execute people who are intellectually disabled.
Florida court documents indicate that tests have indicated Haliburton has an IQ of 74. Haliburton, 60, was convicted in the death of a man who was stabbed 31 times during a burglary.
The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.
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