Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday sharply questioned Texas over its effort to block death row inmate Dexter Johnson from pursuing an intellectual disability claim, pressing the state on an interpretation that she suggested could leave him without a meaningful opportunity to raise it. The Supreme Court has long barred the execution of people with intellectual disabilities, while Johnson argues that changes in medical standards made it possible for him to establish a disability claim that would not previously have succeeded. The question now before the justices is whether federal law permits Johnson to pursue the claim through a second or successive habeas application.
The eventual ruling could determine whether Johnson's death sentence remains open to challenge and clarify when other prisoners may bring successive federal habeas claims after legal or factual circumstances change. The Supreme Court's question notes disagreement among federal appeals courts over when such a constitutional rule is considered "previously unavailable." During Wednesday's arguments, Jackson focused on what she described as a potentially "incongruous consequence" of Texas' interpretation. She said Johnson could be denied an opportunity to raise his claim because the criteria that could make him eligible to claim intellectual disability emerged after his initial federal habeas petition.
Later, Jackson put the consequence directly to Texas Solicitor General William Peterson. "But if the standards change as to whether or not, at the time of the initial conviction, he was intellectually disabled, you're saying that doesn't matter?" "That's correct, Your Honor," Peterson responded, while drawing a distinction between changes in medical standards and new constitutional rules recognized by the Supreme Court. "That's a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review by this court." Jackson challenged the state's distinction between an existing constitutional rule and medical developments that could change whether a particular prisoner falls within its protection.
Her questions centered on whether a rule can realistically be considered available to a prisoner if the factual or medical basis needed to make a viable claim had not yet emerged. At another point, Jackson invoked Panetti v. Quarterman, a Supreme Court case involving when a prisoner could raise a claim of incompetency to be executed.
She noted that the court had rejected an approach that could prevent a prisoner from ever raising such a claim because its factual basis emerged later. He said competency-to-be-executed cases concern a prisoner's condition at the time of execution, while an intellectual disability claim under Atkins concerns the person's status at the time of the crime and conviction Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gabe Whisnant and Dave Siminoff.
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