Opinion ID: 2632907
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Execution of Developmentally Disabled Defendant

Text: Defendant asserts his mental condition is functionally indistinguishable from a mentally retarded individual, and to execute him would violate the federal Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as contained in the Eighth Amendment, well as the corresponding provision in the California Constitution (Cal. Const., art. I, § 17). In Atkins v. Virginia (2002) 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335, the United States Supreme Court held that execution of the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment. But Atkins did not give a precise definition of mental retardation, and it left to the states the task of creating procedures to determine whether individuals facing execution are mentally retarded. ( Id. at p. 317, 122 S.Ct. 2242.) Thereafter, the California Legislature enacted section 1376, which establishes procedures for the determination of mental retardation in preconviction capital cases, and which defines mental retardation as the condition of significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested before the age of 18. ( Id., subd. (a).) According to defendant, the evidence presented at trial shows that he is functionally indistinguishable from a mentally retarded offender. He points to testimony by defense experts that he has low intelligence, that he has an epileptic seizure disorder that has existed since he was a young child, and that this disorder has caused significant damage to his brain and will continue to do so in the future. Defendant's argument appears to be based on this factual premise: (1) he has significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior (§ 1376, subd. (a)); (2) this low functioning results from a condition that was manifested before the age of 18 ( ibid.); but (3) the condition may not have caused him to become retarded before he became 18 ( ibid.). Thus, he argues, even if California's definition of mental retardation requires that the defendant's retardation occur before the age of 18 it would be unconstitutional to execute him merely because his retardation results from a condition that manifested itself before the age of 18 but did not cause him to become retarded until a later time. There is no need to decide the legal issue defendant raiseswhether the state and federal Constitutions prohibit the execution of a defendant who becomes retarded after age 18 as the result of a physical condition that existed before age 18because the factual prerequisites underlying that issue have not been litigated. That is, the trial in this case did not determine the extent of defendant's current mental impairment, or when he became mentally impaired. As a result, those factual questions cannot be decided on this direct appeal; they can be determined only in a habeas corpus petition alleging, based on defendant's mental condition, that it would be unconstitutional to execute him. We therefore reject defendant's contention without prejudice to the filing of such a petition.