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Clifton White is a mentally-retarded individual with an IQ of 52.  He failed every grade beyond the seventh grade.  He never lived on his own for more than three weeks, and he never had a bank account.  His longest-held job was for two months, emptying bedpans.  His scholastic aptitude—including reading, spelling, and arithmetic—is at a second-grade level.

In 1996, White was convicted for the aggravated murder of Deborah Thorpe.  Following a mitigation hearing where a defense psychologist testified that White was mentally retarded, White was sentenced to death.  At the time of White's capital trial, a diagnosis of mental retardation did not prevent imposition of the death penalty.

While White’s habeas corpus appeals were pending, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242 (2002), prohibiting the execution of the mentally retarded.  Subsequent to the Atkins decision, the Ohio Supreme Court decided State v. Lott, 97 Ohio St. 3d 303, 2002.  In Lott, the Court set forth the procedure necessary to file and litigate a claim of mental retardation in the state trial courts.  Specifically, such claims were to be raised in an ORC § 2953.21 post-conviction petition.  The Court also set the following standard, based on “clinical definitions of mental retardation”: (1) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, (2) significant limitation in two or more adaptive skills, such as communication, self-care, and self-direction, and (3) onset before the age of 18.  White then filed a state post-conviction petition asserting that he is mentally retarded and not eligible for execution.

In an evidentiary hearing in post-conviction proceedings before the trial court, psychological experts for both the State and Clifton White found White to be mentally retarded.  Both experts concluded that White had an IQ of 52, that his mental retardation was developmental and had an onset prior to White’s eighteenth birthday, and that White had adaptive skills deficits in two or more areas.  No testimony, expert or otherwise, was presented to contrary.  The trial court, however, denied relief based on the court’s opinion that White did not suffer deficits in the area of adaptive skills.  The Ninth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of relief.  Counsel for White then filed a memorandum in support of jurisdiction in the Ohio Supreme Court.  On June 7, 2006, the Court accepted jurisdiction.  The Court’s acceptance of jurisdiction provides the opportunity to establish precise criteria for a finding of mental retardation in Ohio.
 Click here to read the MISJ filed in the Ohio Supreme Court in White’s case

Mr. White's oral argument is scheduled before the Ohio Supreme Court on May 1, 2007.

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