Eric DeWayne Cathey v. Texas

This petition, like those in Moore v. Texas, 137 S. Ct. 1039 (2017) (“Moore I”), and Moore v. Texas, 139 S. Ct. 666 (2019) (“Moore II”), arises from a decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“TCCA”) rejecting a trial court’s conclusion that an individual is intellectually disabled and therefore may not be put to death by the state. In Moore I, this Court vacated the TCCA’s decision, concluding that the TCCA’s framework for assessing intellectual disability impermissibly disregarded medical criteria in favor of lay analysis. On remand, the TCCA—employing essentially the same reasoning Moore I rejected— reinstated the sentence this Court had vacated, prompting the Court to summarily reverse. Moore II, 139 S. Ct. at 672. As the Chief Justice (who dissented in Moore I but then concurred in Moore II) explained, the TCCA’s opinion on remand simply “repeated the same errors” Moore I had already “condemned.” Id. (Roberts, C.J., concurring). In this case, as in both Moore cases, the TCCA again rejected the detailed factfindings and legal conclusions of a state habeas trial court, disregarded medically accepted standards, and determined based on lay analysis that the petitioner is not intellectually disabled. This time, the TCCA did so in less than two pages, citing no medical authority and instead relying overwhelmingly on its own, pre-Moore I opinion rejecting petitioner’s claim. The question presented is whether, in so doing, the TCCA yet again contravened the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and this Court’s precedents. (i)