Opinion ID: 1718692
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mental Retardation for Purposes of Death Penalty (Atkins)

Text: The Defendant contends that the definition of mental retardation in LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1, requiring the onset before the age of 18, violates his Equal Protection and Due Process Rights. In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), the United States Supreme Court held that execution of mentally retarded persons constitutes an excessive punishment, and thus violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This Court addressed Atkins in State v. Williams, 01-1650, p. 27 (La.11/01/02), 831 So.2d 835, 857, and directed trial courts in post-Atkins hearings: (1) to order a pre-trial evidentiary hearing on the issue of mental retardation when the court has reasonable grounds to believe a defendant is mentally retarded, LSA-C.Cr. P. art. 643. (2) to hold the hearing before a judge, not a jury. (3) to require the defendant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he meets the criteria established in Louisiana's statutory definition of mental retardation, LSA-R.S.28:381 [defining retardation as significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifested during the developmental period]. In response to both Atkins and Williams, the legislature enacted 2003 La. Acts 698, which created LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1. [3] The code article provides for a procedure to be used in the event that a defendant raises a claim of mental retardation. Under the article, such a defendant has the burden of proving mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1(C)(1). The article defines mental retardation as: a disability characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. The onset must occur before the age of eighteen years. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1(H)(1). The article concludes with an advisory list of several medical conditions which do not necessarily constitute mental retardation. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1(H)(2). Included on the list are mental illness, organic brain damage occurring after age 18, learning disabilities, speech and language disorders, and personality disorders. In Atkins, the United States Supreme Court also suggested factors to consider for the determination of mental retardation: Clinical definitions of mental retardation require not only sub-average intellectual functioning, but also significant limitations in adaptive skills such as communication, self-care, and self-direction that became manifest before age 18. Mentally retarded persons frequently know the difference between right and wrong and are competent to stand trial. Because of their impairments, however, by definition they have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others. There is no evidence that they are more likely to engage in criminal conduct than others, but there is abundant evidence that they often act on impulse rather than pursuant to a premeditated plan, and that in group settings they are followers rather than leaders. Their deficiencies do not warrant an exemption from criminal sanctions, but they do diminish their personal culpability. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 318, 122 S.Ct. at 2250-51. In the instant case, the Defendant contends that the preponderance of the evidence in the record demonstrates that he suffers from mental retardation, and that his execution by the state would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. During pre-trial motions hearings, the defense filed a notice of intent to claim mental retardation, and subsequently, filed a memorandum in support in which the defense sought to declare Louisiana's definition of mental retardation unconstitutional because LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1 requires the onset of retardation to occur before age 18. The State filed a memorandum in opposition. The trial court conducted a hearing and subsequently denied defendant's motion to declare LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1 unconstitutional. The defense objected and gave notice of its intent to seek writs. The court of appeal denied defendant's writ and affirmed the trial court's ruling upholding, making the following observation: The defense seeks a judicial declaration that LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1 relating to the capital sentencing of persons who are mentally retarded is unconstitutional because it fails to take into consideration that a person can suffer a disability characterized by significant limitations in intellectual function and adaptive behavior after the age of eighteen. The defense is asking this court to extend the holding in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d [335] (2002), and to redefine mental retardation as used in that case. We decline to so rule at this time. We find no error in the district court's judgment. State v. Anderson, 39,232 (La.App.2d Cir.7/29/04). For whatever reason, the defense did not file a writ application with this Court. Nevertheless, at the penalty phase, the defense argued that defendant's mental retardation was a complete bar to the death penalty, not merely a mitigating circumstance. [4] Here, appellate counsel reiterates the argument that LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1 deprives an individual of his basic right to life by excluding him from exemption from the death penalty based solely on the age of onset of his symptoms of mental retardation, and that such a deprivation violates defendant's rights under the Equal Protection Clause and cannot survive strict scrutiny. In State v. Turner, 05-2425(La.7/10/06), 936 So.2d 89, this Court upheld the constitutionality of LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1 and upheld the statute's provision that a jury serve as the factfinder on the question of mental retardation during a capital sentencing hearing. Although the onset by age eighteen provision was not at issue in Turner, the Court did note generally that a statute is presumed to be valid and its constitutionality should be upheld whenever possible. Turner, 05-2425, at 4, 936 So.2d at 94. Moreover, the provision that the onset of mental retardation manifest by age 18 comports with Atkins, the American Association of Mental Retardation (AAMR), see AAMR, Mental Retardation, p. 1 (10th ed.2002), the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), see DSM-IV, p. 41 (2000), and the definitions provided for by most of the states that have statutes prohibiting execution of the mentally retarded. However, as reflected by defendant's argument, the incorporation of a clinical diagnostic profile into Eighth Amendment jurisprudence illustrates the cautionary note sounded by the American Psychiatric Association, that [w]hen the DSM-IV categories, criteria, and textual descriptions are employed for forensic purposes, there are significant risks that diagnostic information will be misused or misunderstood. DSM-IV, pp. xxxii-iii. The onset age of 18 represents an essential feature of the diagnosis because mental retardation belongs to a set of disorders that are usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence... [a]lthough ... the disorders sometimes are not diagnosed until adulthood. DSM-IV, p. 39. By its clinical definition, mental retardation is a developmental disorder in the sense that the predominant disturbance is in the acquisition of cognitive, language, motor, or social skills. DSM-III, p. 28 (1990). Pertinent to defendant's equal protection arguments are the following observations in DSM-III (not carried forward in DSM-IV): By definition, Mental Retardation requires that onset be before age 18. When a similar clinical picture develops for the first time after the age of 18, the syndrome is a Dementia, not Mental Retardation, and is coded within the Organic Mental Disorders section of the classification. An example would be a 19-year-old with previously normal intelligence who developed the clinical picture of Mental Retardation after sustaining brain damage in an automobile accident. However, a Dementia can be superimposed on previously existing Mental Retardation. An example would be a child with mild Mental Retardation whose functioning deteriorates after sustaining brain damage in an automobile accident. When the clinical picture develops before the age of 18 in a person who previously had normal intelligence, Mental Retardation and Dementia should both be diagnosed. DSM-III, p. 29. Louisiana's statute reflects these distinctions. The various disorders enumerated in LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5.1(H)(2) which do not necessarily constitute mental retardation do not, as counsel suggests, create a separate class of disorders free of the onset age requirement. Consistent with the observations in DSM-III, they may lead to a diagnosis of mental retardation if they occur before the age of 18. Nevertheless, while these distinctions appear entirely consistent within the frame work of a clinical diagnosis, they can appear arbitrary when applied in a legal context, which should require a principled basis for distinguishing between the 19-year who has marked IQ deficiency, and clear adaptive skills impairment as the result of organic brain damage sustained in an automobile accident and the 17-year old who has marked IQ and adaptive skills deficiencies as the result of genetic makeup or ingestion of lead paint (as in the case of Corey Williams, see State v. Williams, 01-1650 (La. 11/01/02), 831 So.2d 835). The United States Supreme Court has made clear that mental retardation is not a quasi-suspect classification calling for a more exacting standard of judicial review than is normally accorded economic and social legislation. City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 442, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3255, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). Although the class of mentally retarded persons is scarcely homogenous and encompasses those whose disability is not immediately evidence to those who must be constantly cared for ..., Id., 473 U.S. at 442, 105 S.Ct. at 3255-56, this large and diversified group, Id., can be defined as a class of developmentally disadvantaged persons for whom a legislature may accord different and special treatment if it has a rational basis for doing so. On the other hand, the group of persons who function at the same mental and adaptive level as the result of other clinical disorders (including dementia caused by traumatic organic brain damage) not related to developmental disadvantages is far more diffuse and much harder to define, and includes those persons who have lost cognitive, language, motor, or social skills, as opposed to those persons who failed to acquire those same skill at an appropriate age. A legislature may rationally treat the two classes differently for purposes of deciding who is and who is not exempt from capital punishment, according special treatment to mentally retarded persons because of the developmental nature of their disorder, while according those in the latter category the opportunity of demonstrating specifically why their disorders mitigate the moral culpability of their act. Cf. LSA-C.Cr.P. art. 905.5(e) (mitigating circumstance that at the time of the offense the capacity of the offender to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease of defect or intoxication). Any rational system of classification may produce seemingly arbitrary anomalies. A normal 16-year-old who suffers traumatic brain damage in an automobile accident may receive a diagnosis of mental retardation while a normal 18-year-old who suffers the same damage in a similar manner may not, although the degree of impairment in intellectual functioning and adaptive skills may be identical in both instances.