Shifting Diagnostic Systems for Defining Intellectual Disability in Death Penalty Cases: Hall vs. Florida.

Mukherjee et al. (2015) unpack the Supreme Court case Hall v. Florida. The Court struck down Florida’s hard IQ cutoff of 70 for death-penalty exemption.

The paper walks through how the Court moved from a single number to a range. States must now count the test’s standard error and look at real-life adaptive skills.

The ruling says an IQ score is not a bright line. A score of 75 could still meet ID criteria once the margin of error is added.

Courts must also weigh interviews, records, and third-party reports about everyday functioning. A low score alone is no longer enough to allow execution.

Olley (2013) warned courts two years earlier that fixed cutoffs ignore measurement error. Hall adopted that exact warning, turning the article’s call into binding law.

Wang (2013) and Matson et al. (2013) showed that labels decide life chances. Hall echoes them by letting fuller, functional evidence override a single label.

Anonymous (2016) later pushed DSM-5 teams to give equal weight to IQ and adaptive data. Hall had already forced that balance in capital cases.

If you write presentencing reports, IEPs, or waiver evaluations, stop writing “IQ = 71, therefore not ID.” Instead, report the 90 % band (e.g., 67-75) and add school, work, and living-skills data. The Court’s rule now backs your broader, error-aware report.