Defendants may be eligible for the death penalty in Tennessee if they have scored at least 70 on IQ tests before age 18, regardless of later lower scores, the Tennessee Supreme Court said in a case involving a man charged with beating a Bledsoe County store owner to death during a 2001 robbery.
In a unanimous decision written by Justice Cornelia A. Clark, the court affirmed a Court of Criminal Appeals decision saying Danny Strode is statutorily eligible for capital punishment if convicted of murdering Harvey J. Brown. Chief Justice William M. Barker and Justices Janice M. Holder and Gary R. Wade concurred in the decision overturning a trial court ruling that said Tennessee law prohibits the state from seeking the death penalty in Strode’s case.
“Because the proof in this case preponderates against the trial court’s finding that the defendant’s mental retardation manifested by his eighteenth birthday, we hold that the trial court erred in finding the defendant to be mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty,” Clark wrote.
Strode, who was 20 years old at the time of the crime, scored 69 on an IQ test three years later. Before his 18th birthday, test scores ranged from 75 to 88.
“The proof in the record is that although the defendant had his I.Q. tested at least four times before reaching the age of eighteen, he never scored 70 or below on any of those occasions,” Clark wrote.
State law prohibits executing “any defendant with mental retardation at the time of committing first degree murder.” The statute’s definition of mental retardation includes, “The mental retardation must have been manifested during the developmental period, or by eighteen (18) years of age.”
The trial court concluded that “the developmental period” does not necessarily end at age 18 and, therefore, Strode was retarded, as defined by the law, when he committed the crime.
“In this case, we concede that the language of the statute is arguably ambiguous and susceptible of two interpretations,” Clark wrote for the Supreme Court. “On the one hand, the use of the connecting word ‘or’ suggests a disjunctive intent that the phrase ‘developmental period’ encompasses a time frame different from the phrase ‘by eighteen (18) years of age.’ This is the interpretation adopted by the trial court.”
But, she wrote, the General Assembly’s use of a comma before the word “or” also suggests that “by eighteen (18) years of age” defines the “developmental period.”
Clark said the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals relied on the statute’s legislative history, including tape recordings in which lawmakers discussed the legislation, to conclude the intent was that mental retardation must have been manifested before age 18.
“Based on an exhaustive review of the legislative history of the statute, this Court’s prior understanding of the terms and a survey of other jurisdictions, we conclude that the language ‘during the developmental period, or by the age of eighteen’ does not include the years past the age of eighteen,” Clark wrote.
The court sent the case back to the trial court “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” Strode faces charges of premeditated murder, felony murder and especially aggravated robbery.