Opinion ID: 783829
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Harris's Intelligence

Text: 145 First, we note that, contrary to the District Court's statement that [Harris's] mental deficiencies were never disputed by the People, the government did, in fact, challenge the severity and nature of Harris's mental deficiencies. To be sure, the government acknowledged that Harris's intelligence was below average. However, the prosecutor challenged Dr. Feldman's view that Harris was in the borderline intellectual functioning category and questioned the validity of the quantitative assessments ( e.g., I.Q. and reading ability) contained in the Hartford School Department records upon which Dr. Feldman relied. Additionally, the prosecutor suggested that Harris may have been malingering when he was examined by Dr. Feldman in order to bolster his argument that he had not voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. 146 When the state trial court denied Harris's motion to suppress, the court largely accepted the government's position. The court explicitly concluded that Harris's intelligence was in the low-normal range, as Dr. Feldman had initially concluded. Thus the court rejected Dr. Feldman's later testimony to the effect that Harris was in the lower borderline intellectual functioning range. This is a factual determination, which we presume to be correct. See Parsad, 337 F.3d at 181 ([The] presumption of correctness [mandated by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) ] is particularly important when reviewing the trial court's assessment of witness credibility.). The state trial court also appeared to accept the possibility that Harris was malingering. Although the court did not express these conclusions until it denied Harris's motion to suppress — a month and a half after the October 17, 1984 hearing — they nonetheless provide insight into the trial court's assessment of the credibility of Dr. Feldman's testimony about Harris's intellectual capabilities. 147 Finally, the effect of Harris's mental deficiencies on his competence to stand trial was addressed — albeit not in the form of a formal competence hearing — in the context of the pre-trial suppression hearing. In that hearing, the expert that examined Harris testified that, despite Harris's limited intelligence, Harris was competent to stand trial. The state trial court credited this portion of Dr. Feldman's testimony, see App. at 441, and Harris never challenged it. Therefore, again, we presume that the state trial court's factual determinations with respect to this issue are correct. 148