A rare alliance between prosecutors and defense attorneys failed to sway the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, as the justices voted 6-3 to allow Texas to proceed with the execution of Victor Saldaño, an Argentine-born death row inmate whose lawyers argue he is intellectually disabled. The court's three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented, and no written opinion accompanied the majority's decision.
Saldaño's case dates to 1996, when he and an accomplice abducted Paul King, a 46-year-old computer salesman, at gunpoint in Plano, Texas. The pair drove King to a remote location, robbed him and shot him multiple times. Saldaño, who was in the country without legal status when the crime occurred, was subsequently convicted of murder.
The constitutional bar against executing people with intellectual disabilities has been settled law since the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling under the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Yet Saldaño's original attorneys never raised that claim at trial. The case eventually landed with the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, a state public defender's office, whose review found that Saldaño had an IQ of 74 — a score that could place him within the range qualifying for an execution exemption.
Ben Wolff, who directs the Forensic Writs office, traveled to Argentina, where Saldaño grew up, to gather firsthand accounts from neighbors, relatives and former teachers. Those interviews painted a consistent picture: Wolff told NPR that Saldaño was sometimes delusional and unable to understand such simple directions as how to cross the street without being hit by a car. Court records cited by the Texas Tribune further described an "inability to appropriately bathe, clothe, or feed himself."
What made the case particularly striking was that Collin County prosecutors, after examining the evidence, concluded that Saldaño should not face execution. Both sides jointly petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' rejection of his intellectual disability claim — an unusually united front between the state and a condemned inmate.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had blocked Saldaño from even presenting his disability evidence. Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor argued that the appellate court's refusal to send the case back for review "severely undermines the State's interest in ensuring the legitimacy of its criminal system." She added: "Here, the State admirably sought to fulfill its responsibilities by ensuring that, if it is going to take Saldaño's life, that grave act will comport with the Constitution's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. The TCCA did not satisfy its reciprocal obligations." Justices Kagan and Jackson joined her dissent.
The Supreme Court has intervened twice in the past decade to compel the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to apply updated medical standards when assessing intellectual disability claims. Since 2017, 20 men have been removed from Texas death row on such grounds, the Texas Tribune reported. Texas currently holds 165 people on death row, and Saldaño is among at least 10 who were undocumented at the time of their charges.
Wolff issued a statement expressing frustration at the outcome. "Every expert who has evaluated Mr. Saldaño for intellectual disability agrees he's intellectually disabled," he said. "The state of Texas, who several years ago sought Mr. Saldaño's execution, now agrees that he meets the criteria for intellectual disability. It is disappointing that the courts have yet to allow us through the courthouse doors to present what we believe to be overwhelming evidence that Mr. Saldaño is intellectually disabled and, as such, the U.S. Constitution forbids his execution."
His legal team vowed to keep fighting to halt the execution.
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