The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a man on death row in Texas is intellectually disabled and therefore cannot receive the death penalty.
The justices ruled 6-3 in favor of Bobby James Moore, who was convicted in 1980 for murdering a store clerk in Houston.
Moore was sentenced to death, but his lawyers argued it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to proceed with the execution of an inmate who is intellectually disabled.
A trial court found in 2014 that Moore was ineligible for the death penalty due to his intellectual disability, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals twice rejected that decision and upheld his death sentence.
The Supreme Court first ruled in Moore’s case in 2017 and tossed out the first ruling from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after finding the lower court used the wrong standard when deciding he could be executed. The justices sent the case back to the lower court to adopt the leading contemporary clinical standards for assessing intellectual disability.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals again concluded that Moore was not intellectually disabled, and the Supreme Court on Tuesday again disagreed with that latest ruling.
“We consequently agree with Moore and the prosecutor that, on the basis of the trial court record, Moore has shown he is a person with intellectual disability,” the court said in an unsigned opinion.
Chief Justice John Roberts concurred in finding Moore is intellectually disabled. However, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
“We greatly appreciate today’s important ruling from the Supreme Court, and we are very pleased that justice will be done for Bobby Moore,” Cliff Sloan, Moore’s lawyer and a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said in a statement.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, who supported reversing the ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, reiterated that Moore has an intellectual disability and should not be sentenced to death.
“The U.S. Supreme Court, which has the ultimate say, has decided that those who are intellectually disabled cannot be executed,” Ogg said in a statement.
