Clifton White:  Ineligible for Death Due to Mental Retardation

On April 9, 2008, the Ohio Supreme Court found Clifton White ineligible for the death penalty due to his mental retardation. State v. White, SLIP OPINION NO. 2008-OHIO-1623. The Court’s decision reversed the findings of the Summit County Common Pleas Court and the Summit County Court of Appeals that Clifton White was not mentally retarded and remanded the case for resentencing to a life term.

The precursors to the holding in White are found in decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the Ohio Supreme Court. On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits sentencing to death persons who are mentally retarded. Atkins v. Virginia (2002), 536 U.S. 304. In State v. Lott, (2002), 97 Ohio St.3d 303, the Ohio Supreme Court held: “Clinical definitions of mental retardation, cited with approval in Atkins, provide a standard for evaluating an individual’s claim of mental retardation. * * * These definitions require (1) significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, (2) significant limitations in two or more adaptive skills, such as communication, self-care, and self-direction, and (3) onset before the age of 18.” The Ohio Supreme Court in Lott also held that there is a rebuttable presumption that a defendant is not mentally retarded if his or her IQ is above 70. State v. Lott, 97 Ohio St. 3d 303 at 305.

Based on these decisions, White raised his claim of mental retardation in a successor post-conviction petition filed on July 12, 2002, in the Summit County Common Pleas Court. Visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran was assigned to hear the case. Discovery was had and psychological experts were appointed for both White and the State. The experts reviewed records, administered psychometric tests, and conducted. clinical interviews with White and his family. The results of the testing and evaluations revealed that White had a full scale IQ score of 52, that he had significant adaptive skills deficits, and that the onset of White’s mental retardation was prior to his eighteenth birthday. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing, both the State and defense psychological experts testified that, based on the results of their testing and evaluations, Clifton White is mentally retarded. In rebuttal, the State presented the testimony of an ex-girlfriend of Clifton White. She testified that Clifton White could heat chicken wings, play the video game Mortal Kombat, and drive a car. However, the psychological experts were aware of this information and had factored it into their opinions. In denying White’s petition, the trial court adopted the finding of the experts that White’s IQ score was 52. Nonetheless, the trial court found, based on the girlfriend’s lay testimony, that White was not mentally retarded because he possessed sufficient adaptive skills. The Ninth District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court.

White appealed and the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decisions of the lower courts. The Court held that the trial court abused its discretion by “disregard[ing ] credible and uncontradicted expert testimony in favor of either the perceptions of lay witnesses or of the court’s own expectations of how a mentally retarded person would behave.” The Court also concluded that the trial court erred by failing to recognize that a mildly mentally retarded person can have both strengths and weaknesses in adaptive skills. The proper approach, according to the Court, was to focus on the lack or weakness of a defendant’s adaptive skills rather than on the adaptive skills he does possess. The Court also found error when the trial court failed to credit the results of the adaptive skills instrument, the SIB-R, in making the mental retardation calculus.

The Ohio Supreme Court’s well-reasoned decision in White provides much-needed guidance to trial and appellate courts reviewing claims of mental retardation in capital cases. The Court’s ruling requires Ohio judges to avoid the substitution of personally-held opinions for empirically sound findings by expert psychologists when determining a mental retardation claim. The Court’s decision also implicitly recognizes the need for evaluations by psychologists with expertise in mental retardation and the value of psychometric instruments specifically geared to assess mental retardation.

"Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety.
 Even the wise cannot see all ends."

J.R.R. Tolkien