Freddie Lee Hall sits on Florida’s death row for the 1978 abduction and murder of a 21-year-old woman who was seven months pregnant. He should not be executed because, he claims, he is “mentally retarded.”
Twelve years after the U.S. Supreme Court held in Atkins v. Virginia that execution of mentally retarded persons violates the Eighth Amendment, the justices will use Hall’s case to examine how states determine who is “intellectually disabled” (now the preferred term for mentally retarded) and whether Florida’s test is too narrow. The court will hear arguments in Hall v. Florida on March 3.
