Opinion ID: 618946
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Coleman decision

Text: The defendant in Coleman brought an Atkins claim to challenge his death sentence. As part of his proof that his I.Q. score was in the mentally retarded range under Tennessee law, Coleman offered evidence regarding the impact of the Flynn Effect and the SEM in determining his ultimate I.Q. score. But the TCCA in Coleman determined, based on Howell, that Tennessee law does not provide “for the application of any standard error of measurement, including the ‘Flynn effect,’ to establish an IQ range rather than the bright-line cutoff of 70.” Coleman v. State, No. W2007-02767-CCA-R3-PD, 2010 WL 118696, at  (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 13, 2010). The Tennessee Supreme Court in Coleman acknowledged that Howell correctly interpreted the Tennessee statute in holding that “an expert’s opinion regarding a criminal defendant’s I.Q. cannot be expressed within a range (i.e., that the defendant’s I.Q. falls somewhere between 65 to 75) but must be expressed specifically (i.e., that the defendant’s I.Q. is 75 or is ‘seventy (70) or below’ or is above 70).” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 242. But the lower state courts had misinterpreted Howell by extending its reasoning too far. As the Tennessee Supreme Court explained, following Howell v. State, some trial courts and the Court of Criminal Appeals have construed our holding that Tenn. Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a)(1) provided a “clear and objective guideline” for determining whether a criminal defendant is a person with intellectual disability to have established a mandatory requirement that only raw I.Q. test scores may be used to determine whether a criminal defendant has “significantly impaired general intellectual functioning” and that a raw I.Q. test score above seventy (70) may be sufficient, by itself, to disprove Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 18 a criminal defendant’s claim that he or she is a person with intellectual disability. Id. at 240. The Tennessee Supreme Court noted in Coleman that the Tennessee Code “does not provide clear direction regarding how a person’s I.Q. should be determined and does not specify any particular test or testing method that should be used. In fact, the statute does not even employ the words ‘test’ or ‘score.’” Id. at 241 (citation omitted). The statute’s purpose is for the courts to arrive at the defendant’s true functional I.Q. score. Id. But “[b]ecause the statute does not specify how a criminal defendant’s functional I.Q. should be determined, we have concluded that the trial courts may receive and consider any relevant and admissible evidence regarding whether the defendant’s functional I.Q. at the time of the offense was seventy (70) or below.” Id. The practical import of this reasoning is that if the trial court determines that professionals who assess a person’s I.Q. customarily consider a particular test’s standard error of measurement, the Flynn Effect, the practice effect [which refers to increasing test scores based on an individual being retested with the same or a similar test], or other factors affecting the accuracy, reliability, or fairness of the instrument or instruments used to assess or measure the defendant’s I.Q., an expert should be permitted to base his or her assessment of the defendant’s “functional intelligence quotient” on a consideration of those factors. Id. at 242 n.55. Allowing for the consideration of these factors was also found by the Court to be “consistent with current clinical practice,” which may “require information from multiple sources.” Id. at 244. Intelligence tests are just one of these sources. And because intelligence tests “are indirect rather than direct measures of intelligence, experts in the field recognize that they, like other measures of human functioning, are not actuarial determinations, that these tests cannot measure intelligence with absolute precision and that these tests contain a potential for error.” Id. at 245 (citations, Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 19 brackets, and internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, recent practice in the Tennessee courts reflect[s] the parties’ and the courts’ existing awareness that, as a practical matter, a criminal defendant’s “functional intelligence quotient” cannot be ascertained based only on raw I.Q. test scores. More importantly, they also reflect the parties’ conclusion that Tenn. Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a) does not prevent them from presenting relevant and competent evidence, other than the defendant’s raw I.Q. test scores, either to prove or to disprove that the defendant’s “functional intelligence quotient” when the crime was committed was “seventy (70) or below.” Id. at 247-48. The Coleman decision also recognized that “[a]scertaining a person’s I.Q. is not a matter within the common knowledge of lay persons. Expert testimony in some form will generally be required to assist the trial court in determining whether a criminal defendant is a person with intellectual disability for the purpose of Tenn. Code Ann. § 39–13–203(a).” Id. at 241. “In formulating an opinion regarding a criminal defendant’s I.Q. at the time of the offense, experts may bring to bear and utilize reliable practices, methods, standards, and data that are relevant in their particular fields.” Id. at 242. These expert opinions are subject to cross-examination, and the trial court is not bound to follow any particular expert. Id. But the trial court “must give full and fair consideration to all the evidence presented.” Id.