Moore v. Texas (2017)

By: Layna Grassi

Overview 

Moore v. Texas (2017) is a Supreme Court case in which the plaintiff, Bobby James Moore,  argued that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) violated the Eighth Amendment by using  outdated, nonclinical standards to reject his claim of intellectual disability and uphold his death  sentence. The defendant, the State of Texas, argued that states have broad discretion under prior  precedent to define intellectual disability for purposes of death-penalty eligibility, and that the  CCA's own test was adequate. The primary issue in this case was whether a state court's method  for determining intellectual disability in capital cases must be guided by current medical  diagnostic standards, or whether states retain substantial discretion to set their own criteria. 

Summary 

Bobby James Moore was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for fatally shooting  a store clerk during a robbery that occurred when he was 20 years old. Decades later, a Texas  state habeas court held a two day hearing and found, based on six IQ scores averaging 70.66 and  testimony from multiple mental-health experts, that Moore met the clinical definition of  intellectual disability under the current diagnostic manuals used by the medical community [1].  The habeas court recommended that Moore's death sentence be vacated under Atkins v. Virginia  (2002), which prohibits executing intellectually disabled individuals.

The CCA rejected that recommendation. Rather than apply current medical standards, the CCA  relied on its own 2004 precedent, Ex parte Briseno, which used an outdated 1992 clinical manual  and a set of seven non-clinical evidentiary factors with no citation to medical or judicial  authority [2]. Applying that framework, the CCA discounted most of Moore's IQ scores,  emphasized his adaptive strengths (like living on the streets and playing pool for money) over his  adaptive deficits, and concluded his academic and social struggles stemmed from outside factors  like childhood trauma rather than intellectual disability. On that basis, the CCA held Moore was  not intellectually disabled and reinstated his death sentence. 

In a 5–3 decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court vacated the CCA's  judgment. The Court held that while states retain some flexibility in enforcing the Atkins rule,  that discretion is not unlimited and must be informed by the medical community's diagnostic  framework [1]. The Court found fault with the CCA's approach at nearly every step. It failed to  properly account for the standard error of measurement on Moore's IQ scores, it inverted the  clinical focus on adaptive deficits by instead emphasizing adaptive strengths, it treated Moore's  traumatic childhood as evidence against disability when clinicians actually treat trauma as a risk  factor for it, and its reliance on the Briseno factors created an unacceptable risk that intellectually  disabled defendants would be executed.  

Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. He  agreed the Briseno factors were improper, but argued the majority erred by resolving the case  based solely on clinical consensus rather than also weighing the practices of other states, and that  the CCA's separate finding on Moore's intellectual functioning was an adequately supported,  independent basis for its judgment [2].

Impact 

This decision reinforced and extended the Court's earlier ruling in Hall v. Florida (2014),  confirming that a state's method for identifying intellectual disability in death-penalty cases  cannot deviate significantly from the medical community's current diagnostic standards,  regardless of a state's own prior precedent or evidentiary tradition. By striking down the Briseno  factors, the Court foreclosed the use of lay stereotypes and unscientific evidentiary checklists to  narrow the class of defendants protected from execution under Atkins. The ruling made clear that  adaptive functioning analysis should center on deficits rather than an offsetting of strengths  against weaknesses, and that risk factors like childhood trauma cannot be treated as evidence  cutting against a disability diagnosis. As a result, Moore v. Texas set an important precedent  limiting state discretion in capital sentencing, requiring intellectual-disability determinations to  stay tethered to accepted clinical practice rather than a state court's own nonclinical  criteria. 

Court Documents 

Moore v. Texas, 581 U.S. 1 (2017) 

Citations 

[1] "Moore v. Texas." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-797. Accessed 21 Sep. 2026.  

[2] Moore v. Texas | 581 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center,  supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/581/15-797/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2026.