Opinion ID: 619888
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Q. Test Given By Date Hines’s Score

Text: Age 1 Otis-Lennon Mental PISD 1978 6 years 68 Ability Test 2 Otis-Lennon Mental PISC 1980 7 years 73 Ability Test 3 WISC-R TYC 1986 13 years Verbal – 82 (Wechsler Intelligence Diagnostician Performance – 112 Scale for Children – Full Scale – 96 Revised) 4 TONI TYC 1989 16 years 87 (Test of Non-Verbal Diagnostician Intelligence) 5 Beta-II TDCJ 1990 17 or 18 97 (or Culture Fair Diagnostician years Intelligence Test) 6 WAIS-III Defense 2004 31 years Verbal – 69 (Wechsler Adult Psychologist Performance – 75 Intelligence Scale) Full Scale – 69 The state court discounted the evidentiary value of the first two I.Q. tests, the Otis-Lennon tests from 1978 and 1980. The court found that Otis-Lennon is a “brief, group-administered, verbal IQ test” used as “screening tool, not a tool for diagnosing mental retardation.” Id. at 7, ¶ 24. Children from impoverished 12 The state court found that both Drs. Profit and Kessner relied on additional documents that were not submitted to either it or the CCA. Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 4, ¶ 11. The state court found that these documents contained “significant information refuting [Hines]’s retardation claim,” including the evaluation of two TYC psychologists who concluded that Hines is not mentally retarded. Id. at 4–5, ¶ 12. 13 Other I.Q. scores were apparently destroyed along with other records over the course of Hines’s education. 17 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 18 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 backgrounds with dysfunctional home lives, like Hines, tend to perform worse on such tests, depressing the scores. Id. at 8–9, ¶ 27–28. The state court found that more weight should be placed on “individually administered tests, [where] the administrator focuses attention on the test-taker.” Id. at 8 ¶ 26. The only other test score in the record before the state court supporting Hines’s Atkins claim was the WAIS-III carried out by Dr. Kessner in 2004. While this is an individually administered test and “well-regarded,” id. at 11, ¶ 39, the state court found several problems with this test as well. First, the administration of the test occurred within one month of Hines’s consultation with Dr. Price, potentially resulting in a “practice effect” phenomenon. Id. at 11, ¶ 42. More problematically, however, the test was administered to Hines at age thirty-one, making it a poor measure of whether he was mentally retarded during his developmental period, a key requirement for finding mental retardation under Briseno. Id. at 12, ¶ 43; see also Briseno, 135 S.W.3d. at 6–7. Third, while there was conflicting evidence as to whether Hines malingered on the test, the state court did not find Hines’s proffered evidence sufficient to show that he did not malinger given his strong incentive to do so. Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 12–13, ¶ 44–51. Finally, Hines’s score of 69 was consistent with a score as low as 64, as well as one as high as 74, with the higher-end score being above the I.Q. line for mild mental retardation. Id. at 13, ¶ 52.14 Consequently, the state court found that the WISC-R score of 96, taken when Hines was thirteen in 1986, was the most persuasive evidence regarding his alleged mental retardation. Id. at 15, ¶ 59. As an individually administered and respected test taken by Hines during his developmental period, the WISC-R 14 The state court also observed that any deficiencies identified by the WAIS-III result may have been due to “chronic substance abuse” and “an acquired organic brain dysfunction” on the part of Hines, rather than mental retardation. Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 14–15, ¶ 53–56. 18 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 19 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 score provided credible evidence that “[Hines]’s intellect [was] in the borderline to average range.” Id. at 15, ¶ 61. The state court rejected Hines’s arguments that the test was improperly administered, that a practice effect boosted the score, or that the WISC-R was an outdated test. The court observed that while the raw data were not available for the test, the availability of individual component scores, as well as the fact that all the individuals who were involved in the administration of the test appeared qualified to administer it, refuted the possibility that it was wrongly administered to Hines. Id. at 16–17, ¶ 65. The court also found that it was unlikely that Hines had been tested in the six months prior to taking the WISC-R, resulting in a practice effect that would boost the score, given that state law requires I.Q. testing only every three years. Id. at 17, ¶ 66. Moreover, even the boost provided by a practice effect would not have been sufficient to raise questions about whether Hines was actually mentally retarded. Id. at 17–18, ¶ 68. The court also found that the evidence of score inflation due to the WISC-R being outdated was mixed, id. at 18, ¶ 71, but that in any event, this inflation would only have been around 3.6 points, leaving Hines’s score “well within the range of borderline to average intelligence.” Id. at 18–19, ¶ 70–73. Lastly, the court found that any disparities among the various components of the WISC-R were likely due to the fact that Hines had a learning disability, something established by both TYC and PISD. Id. at 19–20, ¶ 74–78. In sum, the court explained, “[a]lthough any number of factors could account for [Hines]’s poor performances on the Otis Lennon and WAIS-III tests, . . . there [could] be only one explanation for his elevated performance on the WISC-R—[Hines] possesses an intellect in the average range.” Id. at 22, ¶ 86. The state court also noted that while the TONI and Beta II tests were normally group administered, id. at 21, ¶ 82, it was likely that the TONI test was individually administered to Hines. Id. Observing that the “TONI [test] is 19 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 20 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 at least as accepted as the Otis-Lennon test,” id. at 21, ¶ 83, the court found that these tests were sufficient to lend further confidence to the results of the WISC- R test. Id. at 20, ¶ 79. Thus, the state court concluded that Hines had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he met the first Briseno prong. Id. at 22, ¶ 88. The magistrate judge reviewed the state court’s determination, including the evidence provided by Hines. Hines, No. 3:06-cv-00320-G, Findings and Recommendation, at 3. In concluding that Hines failed to manifest significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning during his developmental period, the magistrate judge, following the state court, placed particular emphasis on the results of the WISC-R test that Hines took when he was thirteen in 1986. Id. at 7. The district court also adopted this view, observing that I.Q. tests taken during a petitioner’s childhood may be given more weight than those conducted in the shadow of habeas litigation. See Hines, No. 3:06-cv-00320-G, Order, at 9–10; see, e.g., Moore v. Quarterman, 517 F.3d 781, 784 (5th Cir. 2008) (denying COA under AEDPA deference and explaining that “[w]hile these [I.Q. test] scores [of 68, 72, 72, 76, 63, and 76] could support a finding of subaverage intellectual functioning, the scores can also sustain a finding that [petitioner] is not retarded”). Hines attempted to counter this emphasis on the 1986 WISC-R test’s results by arguing that these results were unreliable and that later test results, administered well into his conviction and post-conviction litigations in April 2004 and 2009, demonstrate that he is retarded. See Hines, No. 3:06-cv-00320- G, Order, at 11–12 (reporting April 2004 score of 69 on WAIS-III test and April 2009 scores of 70 on a WAIS-IV test and 71 on a Reynolds test). However, as the district court correctly observed, the deferential standard of AEDPA presumes that state court determinations of fact are correct, rebuttable only with “clear and convincing evidence,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1), and 20 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 21 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 that such factual determinations must be “unreasonable,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). In this case, the other evidence presented before the state court buttressed the validity of the WISC-R test. First, Hines’s WISC-R score was consistent with other I.Q. test results, including a score of 87 on the TONI test taken in 1989 when Hines was sixteen and a score of 97 on the Beta-II Test taken in 1990 when Hines was either seventeen or eighteen. Second, Hines was able to secure a GED at the age of 17, an indicator of some general intellectual capacity.15 Third, the state court, which only had before it the WAIS-III result of 69 from April 2004, could reasonably determine that Hines did not put forth his best effort on this test, despite conflicting evidence on this issue. See Moore, 517 F.3d at 784 (denying COA because a state court’s finding that a petitioner is not mentally retarded is not rendered unreasonable simply because “there was conflicting expert evidence” and a range of I.Q. scores). Finally, as the state court noted, the WAIS-III result of 69 was not itself determinative of mental retardation because it could indicate that Hines’s I.Q. reached as high as 74, outside the range of scores required for a finding of mental retardation under Briseno.16 See Taylor v. Quarterman, 498 F.3d 306, 307–08 (5th Cir. 2007) (denying COA where petitioner had received I.Q. test scores of 75, 63, 69, 65, and 71); see also Ex parte Woods, 296 S.W.3d 587, 608 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (“Even 15 Hines attempted to argue that his GED was procured with the illegitimate aid of a test administrator, Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 35–37, ¶ 147–58, but the state court found no persuasive evidence to support this claim. See id. 16 We also observe that even if the state court record were supplemented by the hearing before the federal magistrate judge, it still would not support Hines’s Atkins claim. The later I.Q. tests submitted by Hines suggesting that he is mentally retarded (April 2009 scores of 70 on a WAIS-IV test and 71 on a Reynolds test), still suffered from the same fundamental defects as the WAIS-III test. Namely, they begged the question of whether Hines malingered. While Hines was able to present more evidence at the federal hearing that he did not malinger on these more recent tests, this was insufficient to persuade either the magistrate judge or the district court. Moreover, as we will discuss below, these newer tests cannot show that Hines manifested mental retardation during his developmental period, a necessary component of the Briseno definition. 21 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 22 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 [assuming an I.Q. score range from 63 to 78], a rational trier of fact could find that applicant’s Full Scale IQ falls above 70.”). Given the strength of these evidentiary findings, we hold that reasonable jurists could not debate the district court’s conclusion that the state court’s determination that Hines failed to meet the first Briseno prong was not an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence before it. ii. Related Limitations in Adaptive Functioning While a failure on the first Briseno prong would be sufficient to end Hines’s Atkins claim, both the state and district courts also rejected the contention that Hines suffered from deficits in his adaptive functioning due to mental retardation—the second Briseno prong. In a thorough analysis, the state court evaluated all of the evidence provided by both Hines and the State in light of the seven “evidentiary factors” given in Briseno: • Did those who knew the person best during the developmental stage—his family, friends, teachers, employers, authorities—think he was mentally retarded at that time, and, if so, act in accordance with that determination? • Has the person formulated plans and carried them through or is his conduct impulsive? • Does his conduct show leadership or does it show that he is led around by others? • Is his conduct in response to external stimuli rational and appropriate, regardless of whether it is socially acceptable? • Does he respond coherently, rationally, and on point to oral or written questions or do his responses wander from subject to subject? • Can the person hide facts or lie effectively in his own or others’ interests? • Putting aside any heinousness or gruesomeness surrounding the capital offense, did the commission of that offense require forethought, planning, and complex execution of purpose? 22 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 23 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 Briseno, 135 S.W.3d at 8–9. The state court initially observed that both Drs. Profit and Kessner opined that Hines suffered from sufficient deficits in his adaptive skills to require a finding of mental retardation. Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 23, ¶ 91. However, Dr. Jack Randall Price, Ph.D., an expert retained by the State who personally interviewed Hines and assessed all relevant records, id. at 5, ¶ 16, disagreed with their conclusions and opined that Hines’s adaptive behaviors were inconsistent with those of a retarded person. Id. at 23, ¶ 92. The state court credited “Dr. Price’s personal and more thorough evaluation of [Hines] and the pertinent records,” id. at 25, ¶ 101, observing that Dr. Profit never actually interviewed Hines and that Dr. Kessner’s opinions were based “entirely on the results of her own, recent testing of him.” Id. at 24, ¶ 94–96, 98. The state court also examined the evidence produced by Hines, as well as countervailing evidence offered by the State, on each of the evidentiary factors. Regarding the first factor—whether others regarded and treated Hines as mentally retarded—Hines submitted affidavits from family, friends, and coworkers of Hines alleging that he was a “slow learner, slow to develop, gullible, and a concrete thinker.” Id. at 26–27, ¶ 106. The court determined that these affidavits lacked credibility because prior to Hines’s death sentence, none of the individuals appeared to regard Hines as mentally retarded or treat him as such. Id. at 27, ¶ 109. Indeed, testimony at Hines’s murder trial by these same individuals contradicted Hines’s claim of mental retardation, revealing, for example, that Hines was “a very good employee . . . . [who] had no problems doing what he was asked to do . . . .” Id. at 27, ¶ 111.17 Affidavits offered by Karol Asay, Hines’s second or third grade teacher, and Rachel Braswell, his school’s counselor from third to fifth grades, were based either on a limited recall 17 The state court similarly rejected the probative value of affidavits from other death row inmates. Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 28–29, ¶ 113–18. 23 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 24 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 of encounters with Hines, id. at 29, ¶ 122–23, or contradicted by school records which failed to demonstrate that Hines was actually retarded, instead describing him as “learning disabled and emotionally disturbed.” Id. at 30, ¶ 125. Affidavits from other educators and school officials further indicated that Hines was never diagnosed and never regarded as mentally retarded. Id. at 31, ¶129–32. This was further corroborated, the court found, by Hines’s encounters with the police, CPS, juvenile probation, and TYC. Affidavits and records from these various organizations revealed no indication that Hines was diagnosed as mentally retarded or ever regarded as such, instead noting that while Hines may not have been bright, he was capable of attaining average grades at school and seeking out help when necessary. See id. at 31–34, ¶ 133–44. Together this evidence indicated, the trial court found, that Hines was not regarded as mentally retarded by others. The state court also found that the second, third, fourth, and fifth Briseno evidentiary factors did not indicate that Hines had deficits in adaptive functioning. For the second factor—whether Hines could develop and carry out plans—the state court found that the record revealed that Hines was capable of formulating and executing various plans, including seeking out the authorities to prevent his father’s abuse, planning and carrying out crimes, and escaping punishment while on probation. Id. at 37–38, ¶ 163–67. This was coupled with evidence on the third factor—whether Hines showed leadership—demonstrating that Hines was not “led around by others,” including the affidavits of CPS caseworkers and teachers averring that Hines was capable of manipulation and leading others, as well as acting on his own to protect himself. Id. at 38–42, ¶168–90. On the fourth factor—whether Hines’s conduct was “rational and appropriate” regardless of whether it was socially acceptable—the state court found that the record also demonstrated that Hines had “an aptitude for judging and responding to people and events,” showing some capacity to react rationally 24 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 25 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 to the chaotic events of his childhood. Id. at 43–44, ¶ 191–200. The fifth factor—whether Hines could respond coherently, rationally, and on point to questions—also indicated to the state court that Hines is not mentally retarded, as there was evidence that Hines was able to respond to questions from both investigators and journalists and produce coherent pieces of writing. Id. at 44–48, ¶ 201–17. The state court also found that the last two factors further militated against finding Hines mentally retarded. For the sixth factor—dealing with whether Hines could hide facts or lie in his own interest—the state court found that there was broad and consistent evidence that Hines lied frequently and well when his self-interest demanded it. Id. at 48–49, ¶ 218–24. The state court further observed that Hines had not confessed to the murder and had, in fact, resisted custodial interrogation about it, in contrast to other mentally retarded offenders who inadvertently admit their crimes. Id. at 49 ¶ 225. Indeed, in a typewritten letter dated February 20, 2005, Hines joked about his mental retardation defense, writing “WELL WAIT A DAMN MINUTE I’m a returd remember, can’t blame me . . . . . (smile).” Id. at 49–50, ¶ 226 (errors in original). These findings dovetail with those probative of the seventh factor—whether the commission of the offense required forethought, planning, and complex execution. The nighttime entry to catch his victim unaware and vulnerable, the obtaining of a key in advance, the taking of a weapon, and the careful eluding of the police in the wake of the murder all signaled to the state court that “Hines[’s] conduct showed that he contemplated, designed and improvised the attack on Ms. Haupt with a degree of skill absent in those of lesser intellect.” Id. at 50–52, ¶ 233, 236. These substantial findings indicated to the state court that Hines suffered no deficits in adaptive functioning and thus did not meet the second prong of the Briseno definition. Id. at 54, ¶ 246. The magistrate judge accepted the findings 25 Case: 11-70010 Document: 00511707653 Page: 26 Date Filed: 12/27/2011 No. 11-70010 of the state court with relatively little comment, other than to note that “[n]o new evidence regarding [Hines]’s adaptive functioning was presented to this court at the evidentiary hearing based on his federal writ.” Hines, No. 3:06-cv-00320-G, Findings and Recommendation, at 12. The district court, in accepting the magistrate judge’s findings, observed that the depth and detail of the state court’s findings, as well as the importance of leaving credibility determinations to the trial court, made clear that Hines did not meet the second Briseno prong. Hines, No. 3:06-cv-00320-G, Order, at 15–17. We agree. There is no indication in the record that the state court’s determinations of fact were unreasonable. Reasonable jurists could not debate whether the district court was correct in accepting the state court’s determinations. 3. Onset Before Age 18 The final Briseno prong is that mental retardation must manifest during the petitioner’s developmental period. Briseno, 135 S.W.3d. at 7. The state trial court found that “any deficiency [on Hines’s part] did not commence during applicant’s developmental period, i.e., before the age of 18,” Hines, No. W91-21511-I(B), at 54, ¶ 249, based on its findings regarding the other two