No. 23A856

Willie James Pye v. Shawn Emmons, Warden

Lower Court: Georgia
Docketed: 2024-03-20
Status: Denied
Type: A
Tags: adaptive-deficits death-penalty eighth-amendment intellectual-disability iq-testing woodard-precedent
Key Terms:
DueProcess HabeasCorpus Punishment
Latest Conference: N/A
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether the Eighth Amendment categorically bars the execution of an intellectually disabled defendant whose IQ scores and adaptive deficits demonstrate intellectual disability

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

and that Mr. Pye will ultimately prevail on the merits of his underlying Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment Claims. First, Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled. This is a categorical ban to execution. All experts agree that his IQ scores place him in the range of the intellectually disabled. Testing by experts for both the state and the defense show that he has significant adaptive deficits. This Court has held that the execution of an intellectually disabled individual violates the Eighth Amendment. Mr. Pye is likely to succeed on the merits. Mr. Pye and all those on death row retain a fundamental right to life under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272

Docket Entries

2024-03-20
Application (23A856) for a stay of execution of sentence of death, submitted to Justice Thomas.
2024-03-20
Application (23A856) referred to the Court.
2024-03-20
Application (23A856) for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Attorneys

Willie Pye
Gretchen Mary StorkFederal Defender Program, Inc., Petitioner
Gretchen Mary StorkFederal Defender Program, Inc., Petitioner