Phillips v. Florida
State: Florida
Filed: February 16, 2021
Court: United States Supreme Court
Overview: This amicus brief address the issue of whether Hall v. Florida is retroactive as a matter of federal Eighth Amendment law.
Excerpt: “Hall stated explicitly that ‘[t]he clinical definitions of intellectual disability, which take into account that IQ scores represent a range, not a fixed number, were a fundamental premise of Atkins. And those clinical definitions have long included the SEM.’ Precisely because they were a fundamental premise of Atkins, the command of Hall that they be respected in conducting Atkins evaluations has got to be understood as enforcing a preexisting Eighth Amendment requirement, not creating a new one…The Florida Supreme Court’s decision below that ‘federal law does not require retroactive application of Hall as a new substantive rule of federal constitutional law’ appears on its face to be at odds with both Hall and Teague. Certiorari should be granted to determine whether it ‘conflicts with [those] relevant decisions of this Court.'”
