Moore v. Texas
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 28, 2017 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- March 28, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2016
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. Bobby James Moore fatally shot a store clerk during a botched robbery. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Moore challenged his death sentence on the ground that he was intellectually disabled and therefore exempt from execution. A state habeas court made detailed factfindings and determined that, under this Court's decisions in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), and Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014), Moore qualified as intellectually disabled. For that reason, the court concluded, Moore's death sentence violated the Eighth Amendment's proscription of "cruel and unusual punishments." The habeas court therefore recommended that Moore be granted relief. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) declined to adopt the judgment recommended by the state habeas court. In the CCA's view, the habeas court erroneously employed intellectual-disability guides currently used in the medical community rather than the 1992 guides adopted by the CCA in Ex parte Briseno, 135 S.W.3d 1 (2004). See Ex parte Moore, 470 S.W.3d 481, 486-487 (2015). The appeals court further determined that the evidentiary factors announced in Briseno "weigh[ed] heavily" against upsetting Moore's death sentence. 470 S.W.3d, at 526. We vacate the CCA's judgment. As we…
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