Donald Dillbeck v. Florida, et al.
DueProcess Punishment HabeasCorpus JusticiabilityDoctri
1. In light of the medical community's recent consensus that
Neurobehavioral Disorder Associated with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure is not only
functionally similar to Intellectual Developmental Disability, but uniquely identical
in both etiology and symptomatology, does it violate the Eighth or Fourteenth
Amendment for a state court to foreclose all meaningful review of a defendant's claim
that he is entitled to exemption from execution under Hail v. Florida's requirement
that state courts deciding whether to apply the protections of Atkins v. Virginia must
be guided by the views of the medical community?
2. Because "a jury that must choose between life imprisonment and capital
punishment can do little more—and must do nothing less—than express the
conscience of the community on the ultimate question of life or death[,]" Witherspoon
v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 519 (1968), does the Eighth Amendment bar the execution
of a defendant who was not sentenced to death by a unanimous jury?
Whether a state court's refusal to consider a defendant's claim that he is exempt from execution under Atkins v. Virginia due to Neurobehavioral Disorder Associated with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure violates the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment