Opinion ID: 63723
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Williams’s writing skills

Text: While in the Navy, Williams wrote a letter—with a few suggestions and corrections from another sailor—to the Administrative Separation Board to discourage it from discharging him from the Navy. The letter explained that in the Navy, Williams was able to escape the atmosphere of drugs and death that he had lived in while growing up. He expressed his wish to take a Navy exam to allow him to move to another division. Williams explained that if he stayed in the Navy, he would have a better chance of finding a job in the civilian world later. He also wrote of hoping to buy a car and a house in Houston. Dr. Garnett assessed this letter as written at the seventh-grade level. Other death row inmates housed near Williams testified that they helped Williams in writing letters and commissary orders, although a prison official testified that security procedures would have made it very difficult for inmates to exchange written notes. The district court rejected Williams’s Atkins claim. However, acknowledging that it was a “close case,” the court, sua sponte, granted a certificate of appealability for this court to review the district court’s finding of no mental retardation. Because the district court granted a COA on the issue 13 No. 07-70006 of mental retardation, we have jurisdiction to review the district court’s denial of habeas relief on Williams’s Atkins claim. 28 U.S.C § 2253.