How the U.S. Justice System Screws Prisoners with Disabilities

From arrest to trial, suspects with intellectual disabilities face a system they don’t understand—often leading to false imprisonment or even execution.

Last week, Robert Wayne Holsey of Georgia and Paul Goodwin of Missouri were executed within just a few hours of each other. Each of them had IQs that hovered around 70. An IQ below 70 generally indicates someone with intellectual disability (ID). Goodwin and Holsey, then, were right on the borderline.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executions of people with ID constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. If Holsey’s and Goodwin’s IQs were just a few points lower, they could not have been executed. At least, they should not have been. Despite Atkins, people with IQs lower than 70 have since been executed.

IQs are hardly measurable with microscopic precision. Both Holsey and Goodwin received sentences that were, at the very least, frighteningly close to what the Supreme Court has determined is cruel and unusual punishment. But Holsey and Goodwin are not alone. At every stage in the criminal justice system, from arrest to interrogation to trial to sentencing, people with ID—both those who are guilty and those who are innocent—are especially vulnerable to injustices in virtue of their disability.

Holsey’s case in particular exhibits the vulnerability of people with ID or borderline ID at the hands of the justice system. Holsey admitted to killing a police officer after robbing a convenience store. As this excellent piece in Mother Jones describes, however, Holsey had outrageously poor representation during his trial. His court-appointed lawyer was drinking a quart of liquor per day. At the sentencing, his lawyer failed to hire what is known as a “mitigation specialist” although the court had provided funds for one. A mitigation specialist would have gathered evidence that might suggest to the sentencing jury that Holsey deserved life in prison rather than execution. (His lawyer did not remember what happened to the funds for the mitigation specialist. Later, he served prison time for theft in a different matter.) Ultimately, the sentencing jury did not hear very much about either about Holsey’s ID or about the vicious abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother when he was a child. Had he been competently represented, the jury might well have failed to concur on a death sentence. He might be alive today.


Leigh Ann Davis is the Program Manager for The Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability, which advocates for victims as well as suspects and offenders. It serves as a clearinghouse for information on ID and the criminal justice system, and provides training and technical assistance. (Here’s a short video they produced on the injustices often faced by people with ID.) Davis told The Daily Beast that people with ID might have, as Holsey did, greater-than-usual problems with poor legal representation. “All people are vulnerable to poor representation, but this issue impacts defendants with ID more seriously because of their own lack of ability to communicate clearly with counsel or fully understand the legal system, legal jargon, courtroom proceedings, etc.,” she said. “Also, due to limited cognitive ability they may not be aware of just how inept their attorney is or have any idea that they have a right to a certain level of quality representation.”
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