Moore v. Texas
The Supreme Court ruled that Texas's highest criminal court used the wrong standards when it decided a death-row inmate was not intellectually disabled, because it relied on outdated medical definitions and a made-up checklist of lay stereotypes instead of current medical guidance.
The decision reinforces that states have some room to design their own procedures for identifying intellectual disability in death penalty cases, but that room does not include ignoring what the medical community currently says intellectual disability actually looks like.
How it got here: A Texas habeas court found Moore intellectually disabled, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that finding, and Moore asked the Supreme Court to review that decision.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Bobby James Moore was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for fatally shooting a store clerk during a robbery when he was 20. Years later, Moore argued in state court that he was intellectually disabled and therefore could not legally be executed. A state habeas court agreed after hearing extensive testimony and applying current medical diagnostic manuals, but recommended he receive relief.
The question before the Court
Could Texas rely on outdated, made-up standards instead of current medical criteria to decide whether a death-row inmate was too intellectually disabled to execute?
The Court's answer
No — Texas could not rely on its own outdated 1992 medical definitions and an invented checklist of lay stereotypes (the "Briseno factors") to decide Moore was not intellectually disabled. The Eighth Amendment requires that such determinations be informed by the medical community's current diagnostic framework, even though states retain some flexibility in designing their own procedures.
The Court found that Texas's court miscalculated Moore's IQ range, overemphasized his adaptive strengths instead of focusing on his deficits as current guidance directs, wrongly treated his childhood trauma as undercutting his disability claim, and leaned on the Briseno factors, which have no basis in medical science and create a real risk that intellectually disabled people could be wrongly executed. The case was sent back for the Texas court to apply the correct standard.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People facing the death penalty who claim intellectual disability will have their claims judged by current medical standards rather than a state's own outdated or invented criteria. This affects how Texas and other states evaluate future death penalty cases, and it specifically returns Bobby James Moore's case for another look at whether he can be executed.
What changes now
The case returns to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for further proceedings that must apply current medical standards rather than the outdated Briseno framework. This is a final merits decision on the legal standard to be used, but it does not itself decide whether Moore is intellectually disabled — that determination must be made again on remand under the corrected standard.
What this does not decide
The Court did not rule that states must follow every detail of the latest medical manuals or that clinical views control constitutional determinations outright. It held only that states cannot disregard current medical standards or rely on invented, unscientific factors like the Briseno checklist when assessing intellectual disability.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts agreed the Briseno factors were improper but would have affirmed because he believed the Texas court's separate finding that Moore failed to show subaverage intellectual functioning was an independent, valid basis for its judgment. He argued the majority abandoned the Court's usual approach of looking to state legislative consensus and instead improperly let clinical manuals, rather than judges, define the constitutional standard.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its rule from Atkins v. Virginia and Hall v. Florida that the Eighth Amendment bars executing intellectually disabled people, and that while states can design their own procedures for identifying such disability, those procedures must be informed by the medical community's current diagnostic framework rather than left to a state's unfettered discretion.
- Because Moore's IQ score of 74, once adjusted for the test's built-in margin of error (the 'standard error of measurement'), produced a range reaching as low as 69, the Court held that Texas's court could not stop the analysis at the intellectual-functioning stage and had to also examine Moore's adaptive functioning, meaning his practical everyday abilities.
- Reviewing how the Texas court handled adaptive functioning, the Court found it overemphasized Moore's perceived strengths, like mowing lawns or improving behavior in prison, when current medical guidance says the focus should be on deficits, not strengths, and cautions against relying on behavior observed only in controlled settings like prison.
- The Court also found fault with the Texas court's treatment of Moore's childhood trauma and other conditions as reasons to discount his intellectual disability, when medical guidance treats such trauma as a risk factor for disability and recognizes that other mental or physical conditions often coexist with intellectual disability rather than ruling it out.
- The Court concluded that the seven 'Briseno factors' the Texas court relied on to assess whether Moore's deficits were related to his intellectual functioning were an invented checklist based on lay stereotypes rather than any medical or legal authority, and that these factors created an unacceptable risk that intellectually disabled people would be wrongly executed.
- Having found that the Texas court's error in relying on outdated standards and the Briseno factors pervasively affected its entire analysis, the Court determined the decision could not stand under the Eighth Amendment.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Hall v. Florida (572 U. S. ___)
The Court relied on Hall's rule that intellectual disability determinations must be informed by current medical standards.
Reaffirms Atkins v. Virginia (536 U. S. 304)
The Court reaffirmed that executing any intellectually disabled person violates the Eighth Amendment.
Abrogates Ex parte Briseno (135 S. W. 3d 1)
The Court rejected Texas's Briseno framework and factors as inconsistent with the Eighth Amendment.