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State high court: Law used to send man to death row unconstitutional

Messenger-Inquirer - 6/16/2018

June 16--Robert Keith Woodall, who has spent 20 years on Kentucky's death row for the killing of a Muhlenberg County teen, had his constitutional rights denied when a judge refused to hold a hearing to determine if Woodall has an intellectual disability, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Woodall, 44, has been in prison at Kentucky State Penitentiary since his 1998 conviction in the death of 16-year-old Sarah Hansen. Woodall pleaded guilty to murder, rape and kidnapping in Hansen's death.

Thursday's ruling means Woodall's case will be sent back to the Circuit Court level for a hearing to determine whether Woodall has an intellectual disability. If found to be intellectually disabled, Woodall could not be executed.

Hansen was abducted from a Greenville convenience store by Woodall in January 1997, and her body was found floating in Lake Luzerne a few hours later. Woodall, who already had a record as a sex offender at the time of the incident, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Hansen, cutting her throat and throwing her into the lake, where she drowned.

Since then, Woodall has filed numerous appeals to overturn his death sentence. A federal judge ruled Woodall was entitled to another sentencing hearing, because the judge at Woodall's sentencing hearing had not instructed the jury to not use Woodall's refusing to testify against him. But the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the lower federal court, saying Woodall was not entitled to another sentencing hearing.

Woodall filed another motion asking for a hearing to determine if he is intellectually disabled, which would prevent him from being executed. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S.Constitution prohibits a person with an intellectual disability being put to death.

Woodall presented an expert that said Woodall had an intellectual disability, but a state Circuit Court judge denied Woodall's request for a new hearing. Woodall then appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Kentucky law, specifically KRS 532.130(2) defines "significant subaverage intellectual functioning" in criminal cases as having an IQ of 70 or below.

In their ruling, the state Supreme Court justices wrote that, based on opinions in other cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has found laws that create a "bright line rule" making a certain IQ score the sole determiner of whether a person is intellectually disabled is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled, in other cases, that judges should consider "other evidence" beyond the IQ score to determine if a person is intellectually disabled or not.

Because KRS 532.130(2) has only the "bright line" of declaring people with IQs of 70 or below intellectually disabled, the law has the effect of "unconstitutionally exposing intellectually disabled defendants to execution."

"We now conclude and hold that any rule of law that states that a criminal defendant automatically cannot be ruled intellectually disabled and precluded from execution simply because he or she has an IQ of 71 or above ... is unconstitutional," the justices wrote. The justices said, from looking at other cases, courts must also use "prevailing medical standards," as well as an IQ score, to determine if a person has an intellectual disability.

The justices wrote Woodall should have a hearing to determine if he is intellectually disabled, but declined to make a ruling themselves on whether Woodall was disabled.

"(W)e think the proper remedy is to afford both Woodall and the Commonwealth an evidentiary hearing," which will give both sides an opportunity to make arguments and prevent evidence, the justices ruled.

A hearing has not yet been scheduled.

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com, Twitter: @JamesMayse

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(c)2018 the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Ky.)

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