The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, which houses Texas' execution chamber.Aaron M. Sprecher/AP
On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals re-sentenced 64-year-old Randall Mays from capital punishment to life in prison without parole, after a state expert agreed that Mays’ intellectual disabilities made his execution unacceptable. In 2019, a judge halted the state’s plan to execute Mays, who was sentenced to death in 2008 for the killings of two sheriff’s deputies, following concerns about his understanding of his actions.
“The evidence of Randall’s intellectual disability is overwhelming. He has a 63 IQ,” said Benjamin Wolff, director of the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, in a statement, according to the Texas Tribune. “His intellectual deficits have been seen, and observed by others, throughout his life from childhood to military service, and throughout his adulthood.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2002, in a 6–3 vote, that the execution of people with intellectual disabilities—who are considered to have lower intelligence and issues with skills such as social interaction—is a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The American Civil Liberties Union also wrote in a 2003 document that people with intellectual disabilities “are at a higher risk of wrongful convictions and death sentences,” as they are “more likely to falsely confess to a crime…to please the authorities that are investigating.”
States have different standards for intellectual disability and the death penalty—and there does not seem to be much federal oversight. On March 20, Georgia executed Willie Pye, 59, for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. Pye, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, had a reported IQ of 68, among other signs of intellectual disability.
