¶2But for two exceptions, which do not affect the result, I concur in the main opinion. First, in my opinion, the reason we apply the plain-error standard of review on this particular remand is that Perkins did not contend at trial that mental retardation barred the imposition of a death sentence upon him. Second, I do not necessarily join in that part of footnote 1 urging the Alabama legislature "to expeditiously develop procedures for determining whether a capital defendant is mentally retarded and thus ineligible for execution." I neither encourage nor discourage such legislation. This Court is capable of rightly resolving these issues if and when they are presented, whatever the statutory scheme may be at the time. *458
851 So. 2d 453
Ex Parte Perkins
Decided November 22, 2002
Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 2002-11-22
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
“"Although the Legislature has not had an occasion to address this State’s policy on this matter and establish a procedure for determining whether a capital defendant is mentally retarded and therefore not subject to the death penalty, we conclude that Perkins does not suffer from mental retardation under the definitions considered by the United States Supreme Court in reaching its holding in Atkins or as defined by any of the state statutes that prohibit the imposition of the death sentence on a mentally retarded defendant. "... Those states with statutes prohibiting the execution of a mentally retarded defendant require that a defendant, to be considered mentally retarded, must have significantly subaverage intellectual functioning (an IQ of 70 or below), and significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior. Additionally, these problems must have manifested themselves during the developmental period (i.e., before the defendant reached age 18).””
quoted by 3 later decisions, including Beckworth v. State, 928 So. 2d 315 - Morrow v. State
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 2002-11-22
How this case has been cited
Cited by 68 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2026 · most notably Boyd v. State (2003), Bowling v. Commonwealth (2005)
8 federal appellate · 50 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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