Opinion ID: 618946
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying Coleman to the present case

Text: The Tennessee Supreme Court went to great lengths in Coleman to explain why its decision comported with its own prior precedent, Tennessee statutory law, other states’ statutes, current clinical practice (which Atkins itself noted is generally incorporated in the various statutory definitions), and current litigation practice. Id. at 240-48. Even absent the Court’s guidance in Coleman, the TCCA in the present case clearly misinterpreted the Flynn Effect’s relevance under Howell. Although Howell emphasized the need to reach a single functional I.Q. score under Tennessee law, the decision made no mention whatsoever of the Flynn Effect. The purpose of adjusting for Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 20 the Flynn Effect, after all, is to determine the single specific score that most accurately reflects the subject’s I.Q. And unlike the SEM, adjusting for the Flynn Effect yields only one score. See United States v. Davis, 611 F. Supp. 2d 472, 488 (D. Md. 2009) (correcting for the Flynn Effect was found appropriate in order to more accurately determine whether the defendant met the “strict numerical cutoff”). Considering the Flynn Effect in determining a defendant’s I.Q. score is therefore entirely consistent with Howell’s stated goal of assessing whether a defendant’s single I.Q. score, rather than a range of scores, meets the statute’s “bright-line cutoff.” Whether Coleman’s holding regarding the SEM clarifies Howell or deviates from Howell is more ambiguous. On the one hand, Coleman affirmed Howell’s holding that the Tennessee statute requires that an expert’s assessment must be expressed in terms of a specific I.Q. score rather than a range of scores. Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 242. On the other hand, the Court held that an expert should be permitted to consider “a particular test’s standard error of measurement [the SEM], the Flynn Effect, the practice effect,” or other “reliable practices, methods, standards, and data” in assessing the defendant’s I.Q. Id. at 242 & n.55. Coleman might therefore best be read as clarifying that although Howell prohibits interpreting the Tennessee statute “as representing a range of scores,” Howell, 151 S.W. 3d at 457, it does not prevent the SEM, as well as all other relevant scientific evidence, from being used by an expert in determining a defendant’s single most accurate functional I.Q. score. See Duncan v. United States, 552 F.3d 442, 444-45 (6th Cir. 2009) (explaining that “a decision does not announce a new rule when it is merely an application of the principle that governed a prior Supreme Court case” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In any event, regardless of whether Coleman clarified Howell’s holding or changed it regarding the SEM, the Tennessee Supreme Court’s recent elucidation of the Atkins standard under Tennessee law must be applied in the present case in light of our earlier conclusion regarding Coleman’s retroactive applicability. Coleman is particularly applicable because the TCCA’s decision in the present case was cited to support the TCCA’s conclusion in Coleman (before Coleman reached Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 21 the Tennessee Supreme Court) that although evidence concerning the Flynn Effect or the SEM may be introduced into the record, neither of these factors may impact the court’s ultimate determination of the defendant’s specific I.Q. score. Coleman v. State, No. W2007-02767-CCA-R3-PD, 2010 WL 118696, at  (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 13, 2010). The TCCA in Coleman explained that “both in Black and the present case, a challenge is made to the veracity of the bright-line cutoff of 70 in establishing whether a defendant is not subject to the death penalty.” Id. It then held that because Coleman, like Black, was allowed to present evidence regarding the Flynn Effect and the SEM, the defendant’s due process rights were not violated. Id. But as the Tennessee Supreme Court explained in Coleman, allowing defendants to present evidence regarding the Flynn Effect and the SEM is not enough. Tennessee courts must also consider this evidence in assessing a defendant’s ultimate functional I.Q. Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 241-42. 3. Onset by the age of 18 In addition to having an I.Q. of 70 or below, this low level of intellectual capacity must have manifested itself by age 18 in order for the defendant to qualify as intellectually disabled under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a). Based on this rule, the TCCA in the present case denied Black’s Atkins claim because it concluded that “the proof in the record simply does not support that [Black’s] I.Q. was below seventy . . . prior to age eighteen.” Black, 2005 WL 2662577, at . But the TCCA did not explain the extent to which this conclusion relied on any of Black’s various I.Q. scores. Nor did it consider the potential impact of the Flynn Effect and the SEM, despite the court’s consideration of the expert testimony that discussed the impact of these factors on Black’s middle set of I.Q. scores. Just as the TCCA misinterpreted Howell in its Coleman decision, it made the same error here in deciding whether Black had demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that he had an I.Q. of 70 or below by the time he was 18 years of age. Although Black’s experts testified regarding the value of the Flynn Effect and the SEM, the TCCA refused to consider these factors as a matter of law based on Howell rather Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 22 than based on whether “professionals who assess a person’s I.Q. customarily consider a particular test’s standard error of measurement [or] the Flynn Effect.” See Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 242 n.55. The TCCA’s decision is therefore contrary to the latest Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision on this subject. See Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405 (2000) (holding that “[a] state-court decision will certainly be contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law”). And because Atkins defers to the individual states to set out the standard for a defendant to qualify as mentally retarded, the TCCA’s misinterpretation of Howell is contrary to Atkins. Where a state court’s analysis contradicts the governing law, we must conduct an independent review of that issue, unconstrained by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) (which mandates deference to state-court proceedings unless they “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States”). Fulcher v. Motley, 444 F.3d 791, 799 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that after a federal court conducting habeas review determines that the state court’s decision was contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent, the “federal court is unconstrained by § 2254(d)(1) and de novo review is appropriate” (brackets, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted)). We conduct this independent review because “we cannot grant habeas unless [the defendant] is ‘in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.’” West v. Bell, 550 F.3d 542, 553 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a)). Because the TCCA reached its ultimate conclusion that Black did not show by a preponderance of the evidence that his I.Q. was below 70 or that he had adaptive deficits by the time he was age 18, without specifying which I.Q. scores it relied on and why, “[i]t is impossible to determine . . . the extent to which the [TCCA’s] error with respect to its reading of [Howell] affected its ultimate finding” that Black did not meet his burden of proof. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 414; see also Mask v. McGinnis, 233 F.3d 132, 140 (2d Cir. 2000) (holding under AEDPA that the “state court’s determination of factual issues . . . were so closely intertwined with the state court’s articulation of an Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 23 erroneous legal standard, to which we owe no deference, that we can discern no independent factual issues to which we should defer”); State v. Strode, 232 S.W.3d 1, 16 (Tenn. 2007) (holding that “the question of whether an individual is mentally retarded for purposes of eligibility [for] the death penalty is a mixed question of law and fact”). 4. Black’s adaptive behavior Even if Black’s I.Q. was 70 or below by the time he was age 18, we recognize that he must also have had deficits in adaptive behavior by the time he was 18 in order to be considered mentally retarded under Tennessee’s Atkins standard. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a). We therefore now turn to the issue of Black’s adaptive behavior. In addition to explaining Tennessee’s standard for determining a defendant’s level of intellectual functioning, Coleman clarified the adaptive-deficits element of Tennessee’s Atkins standard. The Tennessee legislature did not define what characteristics constitute “deficits in adaptive behavior,” but the Tennessee Supreme Court explained that “deficits in adaptive behavior ‘means the inability of an individual to behave so as to adapt to the surrounding circumstances.’” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 248 (brackets omitted) (quoting State v. Smith, 893 S.W.2d 908, 918 (Tenn. 1994)). Although Smith did not adopt the clinical definition of deficits in adaptive behavior, “Tennessee’s trial and appellate courts have repeatedly relied upon expert analysis of adaptive behavior or functioning predicated upon definitions advanced within the relevant medical and psychological community and authoritative texts such as the AAIDD Manual and the DSM–IV.” Id. These documents are, respectively, the Manual of the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As in Coleman, the TCCA in the present case looked to the definition of deficits in adaptive behavior that the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted in Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790, 795 (Tenn. 2001), which in turn based its standard on the DSM–IV. Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 24 The TCCA quoted the following passage from Van Tran that it had previously quoted in Coleman: The second part of the definition—adaptive functioning—refers to how effectively individuals cope with common life demands and how well they meet the standards of personal independence expected of someone in their particular age group, socio-cultural background, and community setting. As discussed, a mentally retarded person will have significant limitations in at least two of the following basic skills: communication, self-care, home living, social/interpersonal skills, use of community resources, self-direction, functional academic skills, work, leisure, health, and safety. Influences on adaptive functioning may include the individual’s education, motivation, personality characteristics, social and vocational opportunities, and the mental disorders and general medical conditions that may coexist with Mental Retardation. Black, 2005 WL 2662577, at  (quoting Van Tran, 66 S.W. 2d at 795 (internal quotation marks omitted)). The TCCA in Coleman determined that although “[Coleman] has established that he has deficits in academic performance, he has not established that he suffers substantial limitations in at least two adaptive behavioral skill areas. Accordingly, he has failed to establish that he has adaptive deficits by a preponderance of the evidence.” Coleman v. State, No. W2007-02767-CCA-R3-PD, 2010 WL 118696, at  (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 13, 2010). The Tennessee Supreme Court disagreed with the analysis of both the TCCA and the trial court. It determined that their erroneous interpretation of Howell led them to assess the possible causes of Coleman’s apparent deficiencies in adaptive behavior without the benefit of “testimony indicating that Mr. Coleman’s intellectual capacities rendered him intellectually disabled.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 249. The lower courts’ failure to properly consider this evidence concerning Coleman’s intellectual capacities might have had “a substantial and injurious impact on the trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision-making in weighing the relative strengths of the causes of the seeming deficits in Mr. Coleman’s adaptive behavior.” Id. Notably, the Tennessee Supreme Court found that the lower courts’ Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 25 assessment of Coleman’s adaptive deficits was flawed, even though they acknowledged that he had various personality problems, because they did not think that these personality problems could be characterized as deficits in adaptive behavior under Tennessee’s Atkins standard. See id. This problem is equally present in the TCCA’s decision in the present case. Just as in Coleman, the TCCA here cited a number of expert assessments indicating that Black had various personality problems, but it concluded that these issues did not amount to deficits in his adaptive behavior. Black, 2005 WL 2662577, at -7, 10, 15-16. Even the State’s experts acknowledged that Black has serious personality problems. Coleman’s conclusion that the erroneous exclusion of expert testimony concerning adjustments to Coleman’s I.Q. score might have had “a substantial and injurious impact on the [lower courts’] decision-making in weighing the relative strengths of the causes of the seeming deficits in Mr. Coleman’s adaptive behavior” is therefore equally applicable in the present case. See Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 249. The relevant question, however, is whether Black displayed the requisite deficits in his adaptive behavior by the time he was 18 years of age. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a). As with the TCCA’s analysis of Black’s level of intellectual functioning, its conclusory reliance on the record as a whole and the ambiguity of the conflicting evidence make the TCCA’s errors in assessing Black’s adaptive deficits extend to the determination of whether these adaptive deficits manifested themselves by the time Black was age 18. The TCCA’s analysis of the adaptive-deficits issue in the present case is thus contrary to Coleman. In addition to connecting the analysis of adaptive deficits to the proper assessment of intellectual capacities, Coleman contains several legal principles regarding adaptive deficits that are relevant to the analysis in the present case. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that “the definition of ‘intellectual disability’ embraces a heterogeneous population ranging from persons who are totally dependent to persons who are nearly independent.” Id. at 231. This position supports the idea that a court reviewing whether a defendant is mentally retarded “must focus on Defendant’s deficits, Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 26 not his abilities.” United States v. Lewis, No. 1:08 CR 404, 2010 WL 5418901, at  (N.D. Ohio Dec. 23, 2010). Various experts from both sides in the present case also testified that someone might be mentally retarded but still be able to carry out any of a number of everyday activities, such as maintaining a simple job or driving a car. A full, independent review of whether Black showed by a preponderance of the evidence that he displayed adaptive deficits by the time he was age 18 must therefore look at his weaknesses instead of at his strengths. The Tennessee Supreme Court in Coleman also determined that the lower courts erred in their decision to distinguish between Mr. Coleman’s mental illness and his intellectual disability as separate causes of his adaptive limitations. By concluding that Mr. Coleman’s adaptive deficiencies were caused by his mental illness alone, the lower courts treated Mr. Coleman’s mental illness and intellectual disabilities as separate dichotomous spheres rather than as interwoven causes. Coleman, 341 SW3d at 249. In making this point, the Tennessee Supreme Court explained that there is no consensus among the various state courts around the country, nor in the scientific literature, regarding “the role of causation with regard to assessing deficits in adaptive behavior.” Id. at 250. The Tennessee Supreme Court in Coleman did not resolve this conflict because it determined that the matter should be addressed only after the record was more complete. Id. at 252. But even with the less-than-complete record before it, the Court noted that the expert testimony in the record established that mental retardation and other mental disorders are not mutually exclusive. See id. at 252-53. Rather, mental retardation and any number of other factors may coexist as comorbid causes of a defendant’s deficient adaptive functioning. See id. The Tennessee Supreme Court thus concluded that the TCCA had erred in holding that Coleman’s adaptive deficits were caused solely by his mental illness, without considering evidence that “intellectual disability and mental illness were inter-related and served to aggravate each other, combining to limit Mr. Coleman’s Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 27 adaptive functionality.” Id. at 252. Moreover, although the Tennessee Supreme Court did not make a conclusive legal determination concerning the causal relationship between mental retardation and mental illness, the legal precedents and scientific literature that it cited explain that, at a minimum, courts must consider the possibility that a defendant’s mental retardation and other mental illnesses might be comorbid causes of a defendant’s personality problems. See id. at 251-53; Lewis, 2010 WL 5418901, at  (“Indeed, individuals with intellectual disability are three to four times more likely to have comorbid mental disorders than the general population.”). Coleman thus establishes that even where a defendant suffers from mental illness, that finding does not preclude a concomitant determination that the defendant’s personality problems constitute adaptive deficits under Tennessee’s Atkins standard. The TCCA in the present case repeatedly cited evidence that it interpreted as supporting the existence of Black’s mental illness but not of his mental retardation. For example, the TCCA explained that Dr. Engum “believed that Petitioner suffered from personality problems, delusional problems, or psychological difficulties, [but that] those issues are separate and apart from the issue of whether Petitioner was mentally retarded.” Black, 2005 WL 2662577, at . The TCCA also concluded, based on Dr. Vaught’s testimony, that mental retardation “has nothing, however, to do with mental illness.” Id. at . This reasoning is similar to the TCCA’s error in Coleman of treating “Mr. Coleman’s mental illness and intellectual disabilities as separate dichotomous spheres rather than as interwoven causes.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 249. On remand, a proper analysis of Black’s case under Coleman must consider the potential relationship between mental retardation and mental illness. 5. Conclusion on Black’s Atkins claim Overall, the record is rife with conflicting testimony regarding Black’s level of intelligence and adaptive deficits by the time he was age 18. The TCCA’s decision is of little help because the court made so few definitive factual determinations leading up to its ultimate conclusion that Black did not show by a preponderance of the evidence that he qualifies as mentally retarded. Moreover, the TCCA did not have the benefit of Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 28 Coleman’s guidance when it refused to consider either the Flynn Effect or the SEM in evaluating the mental-retardation issue. Habeas review by the district court was similarly constrained. The rules governing what factors may be considered in determining whether a defendant qualifies as mentally retarded under Atkins deal with questions of law. See Clark v. Quarterman, 457 F.3d 441, 444 (5th Cir. 2006) (holding that the rules regulating the factors involved in the ultimate determination of whether a defendant qualifies as mentally retarded under Atkins raise questions of law); see also Murphy v. Ohio, 551 F.3d 485, 510 (6th Cir. 2009) (reviewing the state court’s resolution of the defendant’s Atkins claim under AEDPA’s standard for questions of law). The TCCA’s assessment of Black’s level of intellectual and adaptive functioning was therefore contrary to Coleman under AEDPA’s legal standard. Ordinarily, where the state court’s decision is contrary to clearly established law under AEDPA, we will conduct an independent review of the record in order to determine whether the defendant is “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” West v. Bell, 550 F.3d 542, 553 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a)); Fulcher v. Motley, 444 F.3d 791, 799 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that when we determine that the state court contradicted the governing law, we must conduct an independent review, unconstrained by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)). But we will refrain from reaching any independent conclusions ourselves because no court has yet analyzed Black’s Atkins claim according to the proper legal standard, which was set out by the Tennessee Supreme Court in Coleman. See Alley v. Bell, 405 F.3d 371, 372 (6th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (granting rehearing en banc and remanding the case for the district court to determine in the first instance whether it had jurisdiction to consider the death-row inmate’s motion for relief from judgment in light of an intervening case that the district court did not originally consider); see also Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 399 (6th Cir. 1999) (vacating the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the plaintiff’s retaliation claim and remanding the case for the district court to apply the correct legal standard in the first instance). Nos. 02-5032; 08-5644 Black v. Bell Page 29 A complete review must apply the correct legal standard to all of the relevant evidence in the record. We therefore VACATE the district court’s denial of Black’s Atkins claim and REMAND the case for it to review the record based on the standard set out in Coleman and consistent with this opinion. 6. Response to Dissent We note that our dissenting colleague vigorously argues that Coleman “does nothing to implicate [Black’s] Atkins claim,” that “AEDPA forecloses consideration of this state court precedent as a ground for relief,” and that a “[r]emand is unnecessary, inappropriate, and flatly contrary to federal law.” For all of the reasons set forth above in this Part II. B., we respectfully disagree. Moreover, we believe that the dissent fails to recognize that this case raises a unique set of circumstances. Retroactively applicable new rules under AEDPA and under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), are exceedingly rare occurrences. See Ochoa v. Sirmons, 485 F.3d 538, 540 (10th Cir. 2007) (explaining that “Atkins reflects one of the rare instances in which the Supreme Court has announced a new rule of constitutional law that it has also expressly made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review”). For the Supreme Court to explicitly leave to the states the task of defining the contours of such rules is even more out of the ordinary. But these are the unique circumstances that we face in this case, which is why we are convinced that a remand to the district court for reconsideration of Black’s Atkins claim in light of Coleman is the proper resolution of this issue.