Heck Van Tran v. State of Tennessee - Concurring/Dissenting

With its decision today, a majority of this Court has effectively permitted a defendant, who was sentenced to death in 1989 for the brutal execution of a 74-year-old grandmother, an opportunity to escape the ultimate punishment for his actions solely because he has managed to obtain a lower score on a revised I.Q. test than he was previously able to do. Before today, the Constitution of this State has never been held to provide blanket capital immunity to a class of persons based only on the fact of low intellectual ability and deficits in adaptive behavior. Instead, the Constitution has barred such executions only when the defendant’s mental condition displaces the following capacities: (1) the cognitive capacity to appreciate that certain action will lead to the death of others; (2) the moral capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of murder; or (3) the volitional capacity to behave in a lawful manner.