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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Supreme Court finds Florida IQ cutoff for executions unconstitutional

Supreme Court finds Florida IQ cutoff for executions unconstitutional
[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] on Tuesday that a Florida law permitting the death penalty for criminal defendants whose IQ is greater than 70 violates the Eighth Amendment [text] of the US Constitution. The case, Hall v. Florida [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] involved a defendant who was sentenced to death for killing a pregnant woman and a sheriff's deputy in 1978. Hall scored a 71 on a state-given IQ test, making him eligible for the death penalty... [more].

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