Court Opinion

ID: 9795440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:29:05.833397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:30:00.313205
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Vice Presiding Judge:
Specially Concur.
¶ 1 The issue of mental retardation has proven to be particularly challenging for this Court in its review of capital and capital post-conviction appeals. However, Judge Arlene Johnson has provided a thorough and scholarly analysis of that issue as it applies in this case,1 and in so doing has helped the Court resolve several sticky issues in our mental retardation jurisprudence.
¶ 2 First and foremost, this ease sets forth the all-important standard of review this Court will use on appeal when a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence following a jury finding that he or she is not mentally retarded. That is, “[wjhen the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence following a jury finding that he is not mentally retarded, this Court will review the evidence in the light most favorable to the State to determine if any rational trier of fact could have reached the same conclusion.”
¶ 3 This standard of review, with which I wholeheartedly agree, establishes an objective test that will enable the District Courts and litigants to understand the applicable law and respond accordingly. Moreover, the standard gives proper deference to jury determinations on the issue at hand and is consistent with the standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence announced by the United States Supreme Court in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), as applied throughout the years by this Court in Spuehler v. State, 1985 OK CR 132, ¶ 7, 709 P.2d 202, 203-04 and cases decided thereafter.
¶ 4 This standard is not de novo review, where we would look at the entirety of the evidence objectively and then weigh which side made the stronger case.2 Rather, in situations where a jury has rejected a mental retardation claim, we give the evidence of the prevailing party, in this case the State, the benefit of the doubt wherever that evidence is truly in conflict.3 Unless it is one of those rare situations where we can say a rational juror could not have drawn this conclusion from this evidence, the jury’s determination must be upheld. And, I must state that absent a showing of passion or prejudice in the decision making process, those situations should be “hens tooth” rare. As the Court’s order states, “In evaluating questions of fact decided by a jury we give great deference to the jury’s finding. We will not disturb the jury verdict where there is any competent evidence reasonably tending to support it.”4
*272¶ 5 Secondly, in applying that standard of review to the facts, the order in this case correctly observes, “The jury, however, was also entitled to consider Myers’s test scores above seventy and conclude that he functioned at the higher level.” Thus, the case recognizes that Myers presents one of those difficult mental retardation cases, with conflicting evidence placing him either at the very top of the mildly mentally retarded range or, more likely, solidly in the borderline intelligence range. Here, jurors thoughtfully considered the evidence presented and reached the understandable decision that Myers is not mentally retarded.
¶ 6 This decision is consistent with Atkins v. Virginia, which described mental retardation as a “disabilit[yj” or “impairment” of reasoning, judgment, and impulse control. 536 U.S. at 307, 122 S.Ct. at 2244. Quoting from the American Psychiatric Association, the Supreme Court explained that mental retardation is a “final common pathway of various pathological processes that affect the functioning of the central nervous system,” the onset of which “must occur before age 18 years.” Id., 536 U.S. at 308, n. 3, 122 S.Ct. at 2245. Mental retardation is, therefore, a cognitive defect that begins manifesting at a very young age and is irreversible.
¶ 7 But Myers had wildly fluctuating IQ scores, a 22-point difference with the low at 66 and the high at 88. This is odd, and not at all consistent with the reality of someone who had a lifelong disability in the functioning of his central nervous system. A truly mentally retarded person will not have IQ scores that bounce back and forth over so broad a spectrum.5 And while IQ tests are not alone determinative, the defendant’s numerous IQ scores in a range that would not even qualify him to be in the mild mentally retarded range is strong evidence that he is not mentally retarded.
¶ 8 Third, Myers acknowledges that defendants have the threshold burden of producing at least one acceptable IQ test score of 70 or below. It doesn’t figure in a “margin of error,” which would effectively raise that threshold. A margin of error in IQ scoring doesn’t require the 70 threshold set forth in Murphy and this case to be raised. It simply means a defendant with a borderline IQ may need to take the test several times. If a defendant cannot produce at least one IQ test showing the defendant operating at least within the mild mentally retarded range, then there is no way he is going to be able to prove he is mentally retarded at trial. More importantly, he is not a person who is mentally retarded, although he may have some learning disabilities or other types of problems.
¶ 9 And finally, I admire the spirit and tone of this decision. It honors the concept of stare decisis and wisely builds on our prim-eases, rather than attacking them. Orn-eases dealing with the issue of mental retardation should be about" applying the law, not personal opinions about the death penalty.

. This case arises from Petitioner's second post-conviction application in which he raised a mental retardation claim under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) and Murphy v. State., 2002 OK CR 32, 54 P.3d 556. This Court first remanded for an evidentiary hearing and, following that, a jury trial on the mental retardation issue. Under normal circumstances, when this Court remands a matter for an evidentiary hearing under our Post-Conviction Relief Act, the hearing is solely for the purpose of developing an evidentiary record on the issues of ineffective assistance of counsel or actual innocence. In the limited category of cases where the issue of mental retardation arose in post-conviction, however, the hearing is for the purpose of determining if Petitioner was deprived of the opportunity to have a jury in his or her original trial decide the issue of mental retardation.

. Indeed, as Jackson v. Virginia explained, the court does not "ask itself” what it believes. 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789. Rather, the Court asks whether "any rational trier of fact could have found” as the jury did, when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party. Id. "This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Id.

. This is in line with presumptions we routinely make, like that of regularity of the proceedings, of a jury following its instruction, of constitutionality of a law enacted, and of counsel’s conduct falling within a wide range of reasonableness.

. My sincere hope is that this Court will take these words seriously and exercise judicial restraint when reviewing jury verdicts on the issue of mental retardation. Atkins v. Virginia acknowledged a national consensus against the execution of the mentally retarded. However, "[n]ot all people who claim to be mentally retarded will be so impaired as to fall within the range of mentally retarded offenders about whom there is a national consensus.” Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. at 317, 122 S.Ct. at 2250. In *272other words, a line must be drawn somewhere. The difficult job of sorting through the facts and determining who is and who is not mentally retarded will ultimately fall upon properly instructed jurors, not five judges. And it stands to reason that the greatest challenges jurors will face in that regard will be to evaluate those individuals with IQs that place them in the "mild” mentally retarded range or just above. See id., 536 U.S. at 308, n. 3, 122 S.Ct. at 2245 (" 'Mild’ mental retardation is typically used to describe people with an IQ level of 50-55 to approximately 70.”) I anticipate that members of the Court will not always personally agree with the jury's determination, but under the standard of review the Court adopts today, we must accept their decision so long as there is any competent evidence reasonably tending to support it. No one would want a Court that claims to adopt one standard of review but then applies a lesser standard, say de novo review, whenever a majority of the Court disagrees with the trier of fact's difficult decision.

. Indeed, DSM-IV-TR at 42 indicates that when there is a significant scatter in IQ test scores, a profile of strengths and weaknesses, rather than the mathematically derived IQ score, will more accurately reflect one's learning abilities. In other words, a great fluctuation in IQ scores indicates something is not right, and should be ipso facta evidence the person is not mentally retarded.