Opinion ID: 1685770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Proof of Subaverage General Intellectual Functioning Prior to Age Eighteen

Text: After hearing the proof submitted by the Defendant and the State, which consisted of expert psychological testimony and the testimony of the Defendant's adoptive mother, the trial court concluded that (1) the Defendant had an I.Q. of 70 or below prior to his eighteenth birthday and (2) the Defendant suffered deficits in adaptive behavior prior to his eighteenth birthday. [11] Based on those findings, the court concluded that the Defendant was mentally retarded under the definition contained within Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203(a). As noted above, the question of whether an individual is mentally retarded for purposes of eligibility of the death penalty is a mixed question of law and fact. On appeal the trial court's findings of fact must be reviewed with a presumption of correctness and reversed only when the preponderance of the evidence is contrary to the findings of the court. Odom, 928 S.W.2d at 23. The Court of Criminal Appeals determined that the evidence preponderated against the trial court's findings  both as to the proof of below 70 I.Q. and proof of deficits in adaptive behavior. We agree. The proof in the record is that although the Defendant had his I.Q. tested at least four times before reaching the age of eighteen, he never scored 70 or below on any of those occasions. In 1990, at age eight, he scored an 88; in 1992, at age eleven, he scored a 75; in 1995, at age thirteen, he scored a 78; and in 1996, at age fifteen, he again scored a 78. In addition, after being admitted to the Tennessee Department of Correction in 2003, at age twenty-one or twenty-two, he scored an 84. It was not until 2004, at the age of twenty-three, that he scored below a 70. Both the expert for the Defendant and the expert for the State agreed that he scored a 69 on this last test, which met the definition of significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning under Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-203(a)(1). This crime was committed in 2001, when the Defendant was twenty years old. Defense expert Dr. Brown conceded that there were no records reflecting an I.Q. score of 70 or less prior to the age of eighteen. Furthermore, he admitted that he could not project the I.Q. score of 69, received at age twenty-three, back to the time of the crime, when the Defendant was twenty years old. State expert Dr. Engum agreed with Dr. Brown that no previous evaluation of the Defendant showed that he had an I.Q. lower than 70. Every psychological evaluation conducted previously had indicated that the Defendant was in the borderline range, but was not mentally retarded. The trial court's statement that Dr. Brown further testified Defendant would have had the same I.Q. of 69 at age 20 is inaccurate. Dr. Brown did testify that [t]o my satisfaction, the problem we have today he had when he was in kindergarten. This statement, however, was in the context of a discussion on the Defendant's deficits in adaptive behavior, which Dr. Brown gleaned from his discussions with the Defendant's adoptive mother and from notations in the Defendant's educational files. Dr. Brown expressly conceded at several points during his testimony that the Defendant's mental retardation did not manifest itself in any records prior to the age of eighteen. He opined, however, that the Defendant's mental retardation manifested during the developmental period, which he defined as up to the age of twenty-four or twenty-six years old. We have rejected such a definition. Based on uncontroverted evidence, the trial court's finding that the Defendant was mentally retarded at the time of the crime is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence. The Court of Criminal Appeals' decision on this point is affirmed.