Opinion ID: 852183
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Baer's Potential Mental Retardation

Text: The record contains very occasional mention of mental retardation. We thus pause to consider whether there might be any claim under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), though none of his lawyers nor any of the multitude of medical experts have made this an issue. Dr. Richard Lawlor and Dr. Philip Harvey, two of the experts who testified at PCR, tested Baer's IQ. (PCR Tr. at 336; PCR Ex. 15.) Dr. Lawlor tested Baer's IQ in December 2004, and Dr. Harvey tested it in 2008. (Direct Appeal App. at 1581; PCR Ex. 15.) The test result administered by Dr. Lawlor was a borderline score of sixty-nine to seventy-one, and the test administered by Dr. Harvey was in the low eighties. (PCR Tr. at 336; PCR Ex. 15.) As Dr. Harvey acknowledged, Baer had been incarcerated and under psychiatric treatment for several years, so he based his conclusions about Baer's mental state at the time of the crime on the assumption that his cognition in 2008 was at least not likely to be worse than at the time of the crime. (PCR Tr. at 282-84.) This is because [s]ubstance abuse-related disorders improve fairly substantially during periods of abstinence. (PCR Tr. at 282.) Therefore, Baer's cognitive performance data Dr. Harvey collected is quite likely an underestimate of his level of cognitive impairment at the time of the crime. (PCR Tr. at 282.) Dr. Lawlor concluded that the 2004 test results meant Baer would be a person who, with effort and motivation, could pass in school, but it would take a lot of motivation and effort with that level of functioning. And he certainly wouldn't be an honor roll student. (PCR Tr. at 336.) After discussing Dr. Harvey's IQ test results, Dr. Lawlor expressly stated that Baer is not mentally retarded. (PCR Tr. at 336.) Dr. Harvey did not discuss the IQ results in his report at PCR, but he did discuss Baer's cognitive abilities. (PCR Tr. at 272-74.) He found that Baer has a wide range or scatter in his abilities. There are a number of his abilities that I examined that are essentially in the average range of performance. (PCR Tr. at 272.) As an example, Baer's vocabulary scores were above average for someone with his educational attainment and his opportunities. (PCR Tr. at 273.) On the other hand, other aspects of his performance, such as his working memory, were quite impaired. (PCR Tr. at 273.) Further, Dr. Harvey found that Baer's family history is positive for mental retardation, though he did not attribute any significance to this observation. (PCR Tr. at 299.) In Atkins, the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the American Psychiatric Association's definition, noted that mild mental retardation applies to people with an IQ level of fifty or fifty-five to approximately seventy. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 309 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 2242. In State v. McManus, this Court restated what qualifies as significantly subaverage intellectual functioning under Ind.Code § 35-36-9-2: a person is considered to meet the subaverage intellectual functioning component if the person's full-scale IQ test score is two standard deviations below the mean; i.e., an IQ between 70 and 75 or lower. 868 N.E.2d 778, 785 (Ind.2007) (quoting Woods v. State, 863 N.E.2d 301, 304 (Ind.2007)); see also, Atkins, 536 U.S. at 308 n. 3, 122 S.Ct. 2242. In McManus we concluded that the post-conviction court's finding that the defendant was significantly subaverage was clearly erroneous and not supported by the record. McManus, 868 N.E.2d at 787. McManus presented scores from five IQ tests, all of which indicated scores of seventy or above and three of which indicated scores above the seventy to seventy-five cutoff. Id. at 785-86. The record also included expert testimony that McManus was not within the definition of mental retardation. Id. at 786. Given our holding in McManus and the extensive record in Baer's case, it appears that the Eighth Amendment does not bar application of the death penalty on grounds of retardation.