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Homicide Defendants with Intellectual Disabilities: Issues in Diagnosis in Capital Cases

This article explores the many issues involved in establishing the diagnosis of intellectual disability in a so-called Atkins (death penalty exemption) hearing. Among the issues addressed are the need to go beyond IQ scores in establishing intellectual deficits, the need to go beyond rating scores in establishing adaptive behavior deficits, the need to clarify the target age at which intellectual disability is to be established, and the need to expand the Atkins umbrella to include a broader universe of people with brain-based impairments of everyday judgment and functioning. The purpose of these improvements would be to base legal protections for impaired defendants more on actual social vulnerability and less on artificial and indirect statistical criteria.