The pending Supreme Court decision that worries disability rights groups
- - The pending Supreme Court decision that worries disability rights groups
Maureen Groppe, USA TODAYDecember 21, 2025 at 9:00 AM
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WASHINGTON – Disability rights group fear a death penalty case before the Supreme Court could have implications for the intellectually disabled far beyond the criminal context.
The justices are considering how to weigh multiple Intelligent Quotient scores when determining if a death row inmate’s intellectual disability is severe enough that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to execute him.
But how the court rules could potentially affect eligibility for government services for people with disabilities, such as health care, education services and income support, according to advocates.
More than one-fifth of working-age recipients of Supplemental Security Income qualified because of an intellectual disability, according to a 2017 report.
“It’s just very critical that there be a universal definition when it comes to intellectual disability,” said Shira Wakschlag, general counsel for The Arc of the United States.
The Arc and other advocate groups worry that the court could move towards relying solely on IQ tests and not factoring in other information about someone’s ability to navigate daily life and how early any problems started.
A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2024.
The Supreme Court rejected that approach in 2014, ruling that Florida could not use a single IQ test to decide an inmate’s eligibility for the death penalty.
“Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number,” the court said in a 5-4 opinion.
And in 2019, the court said Texas failed to account for the possible error range in an IQ score, assuming that a score over 70 ruled out an intellectual disability.
Now, in a pending case from Alabama, the court is considering what to do when most – but not all – of a person’s IQ scores are above 70 after factoring in the error range.
Disability rights groups told the court in filings that when IQ scores are ambiguous or if their accuracy is doubted, then other evidence about how someone functions should be considered.
During the court’s December oral arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson brought up the mental health community’s position.
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“They seem to be saying that you’ve got to look at a lot of different things in order to come to the truth of whether or not this person is actually intellectually disabled,” she said.
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But Justice Samuel Alito, suggested there would be greater “consistency and predictability” in death penalty cases if a defendant has to meet a concrete standard.
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“Is that not one of the loadstars of the court’s death penalty jurisprudence, as opposed to a situation where everything is up for grabs in every case?” Alito asked.
Death penalty cases are only a “tiny fraction of the universe of intellectual disability assessments,” according to disability rights groups.
Because people who have intellectual disabilities generally need ongoing support throughout their lives, a clinical diagnosis can help them get special education, home and community-based services and other help.
Wakschlag, the general counsel for The Arc, said the Supreme Court has resisted past efforts by states to change its approach to intellectual disability assessment.
But if the court reverses course, she said, “those decisions have implications in terms of how future courts in other cases – and how agencies in general – define the term.”
“It’s very dangerous,” Wakschlag said, “to veer away from the clinical definition.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The pending Supreme Court case that worries disability rights groups
Source: “AOL Breaking”
