What the Jordan Ruling Means for Intellectual Disability and Capital Punishment

On April 9, 2026 (Clarence Curtis Jordan’s 70th birthday) the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated his death sentence and sent his case back to Harris County for a new punishment proceeding. Jordan had been on Texas death row since 1978. He was found incompetent to be executed in 1988. For nearly four decades after that, he had no attorney.

The Jordan ruling is a striking illustration of how constitutional protections for people with intellectual disabilities operate in the Texas capital punishment system (both how they are supposed to work and what happens when they fall through the cracks of an overburdened court system). It is also a reminder that capital cases are never truly final until a sentence has been carried out, and that post-conviction advocacy can make the difference even decades after trial.

 

The Jordan Case: What Happened

Clarence Jordan was 21 years old when he shot and killed Joe L. Williams, a Houston grocer, during a burglary in 1977. By the time of his crime, Jordan had already spent most of his life struggling with hallucinations and intellectual deficits. His IQ placed him in the bottom 0.5 percent of the population. He was convicted in 1978, had his sentence overturned, was convicted again in 1983, and sentenced to death.

In 1988, the TCCA found him incompetent to be executed. Under the Eighth Amendment, a person who is so severely mentally impaired that they cannot rationally understand the connection between their crime and their punishment cannot be executed. Jordan’s condition placed him in that category. But the finding of incompetency did not result in his sentence being vacated. It simply meant the state could not execute him until competency was restored. And then, seemingly, the system forgot about him.

Jordan spent the next approximately 36 years on death row without an attorney advocating for him. He was not alone in this predicament. In 2024, it emerged that Harris County had a significant backlog of delayed criminal appeals, some lost for more than a decade. As part of the effort to address that backlog, Jordan was finally appointed counsel from the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs in November 2024.

His new attorney, Ben Wolff, filed a petition arguing that Jordan should never have received the death penalty in the first place in that his intellectual disability and documented mental illness made the sentence constitutionally impermissible under the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia. The TCCA agreed. On April 9, 2026, it vacated the death sentence. Jordan will be resentenced to life and, given the length of his incarceration, is likely eligible for parole immediately.

 

The Constitutional Framework: Atkins v. Virginia

In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the United States Supreme Court held that executing a person with intellectual disability violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Court relied on the concept of evolving standards of decency: the principle that the Eighth Amendment is interpreted in light of society’s developing understanding of what punishments are acceptable. By 2002, a substantial national consensus had developed against executing people with intellectual disabilities, and the Court gave that consensus constitutional force.

The Court’s reasoning was grounded in the specific characteristics that make intellectual disability constitutionally significant in capital cases. People with intellectual disability have diminished ability to understand and process information, learn from experience, communicate, engage in logical reasoning, and control impulses. These deficits mean they are less culpable for their conduct than a person without intellectual disability. They are also more susceptible to wrongful conviction and wrongful execution: they are more likely to give false confessions, less able to assist in their own defense, and more likely to behave in ways during trial that mislead juries about their culpability.

Atkins left the definition of intellectual disability and the procedures for evaluating it to individual states which was a decision that would lead to significant variation in how the protection was implemented, and to a series of subsequent Supreme Court decisions addressing what Texas in particular was doing wrong.

 

Texas and Moore v. Texas: A Decade of Conflict

Texas’s approach to evaluating intellectual disability in capital cases generated its own line of Supreme Court litigation. In Hall v. Florida, 572 U.S. 701 (2014), the Court held that states could not use a rigid IQ cutoff (typically 70) to categorically exclude a defendant from Atkins protection without accounting for the standard error of measurement in IQ testing.

Then came Moore v. Texas. Bobby James Moore had been on Texas death row since 1980. The Texas courts had denied his Atkins claim using a set of factors derived from a 1992 clinical manual that clinical professionals had long since superseded (a framework the TCCA called the Briseno factors). In Moore v. Texas, 581 U.S. 1 (2017), the Supreme Court held that Texas was using outdated clinical standards that deviated from current medical understanding of intellectual disability. The Court reversed and remanded. On remand, the TCCA again rejected Moore’s claim, and in Moore v. Texas, 586 U.S. 1 (2019), the Supreme Court reversed again. This time they found that Moore was intellectually disabled and could not be executed.

Moore established that Texas courts must use current clinical standards (not outdated ones, and not informal factors invented by courts) when evaluating intellectual disability claims under Atkins. The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) and the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manuals define intellectual disability by three criteria: significant deficits in intellectual functioning (generally below approximately 70-75 on a properly scored IQ test, accounting for standard error), significant deficits in adaptive behavior, and onset of both during the developmental period (before age 18). Texas courts are required to apply these clinical standards, not substitute their own.

 

What “Intellectual Disability” Means Under the Clinical Standards

Understanding what courts look for in an intellectual disability evaluation requires understanding the clinical framework.

Intellectual Functioning

IQ testing is the primary measure of intellectual functioning, but it is not a simple number. IQ tests have a standard error of measurement of approximately five points, meaning a reported score of 70 could reflect a true score anywhere from roughly 65 to 75. Courts must account for this range rather than applying a mechanical cutoff. They must also consider the Flynn Effect which is the documented phenomenon of rising IQ scores across the population over time (which means older IQ test norms may overestimate current ability).

Adaptive Behavior

Adaptive behavior refers to the collection of conceptual, social, and practical skills that people use in everyday life. Conceptual skills include language, reading, writing, and understanding of time and money. Social skills include interpersonal skills, following rules, and avoiding being victimized. Practical skills include activities of daily living, occupational skills, and use of transportation and communication. Significant deficits in adaptive behavior are assessed across multiple domains and must be documented by standardized measures as well as clinical observation and testimony from people who knew the defendant.

Developmental Onset

The intellectual disability must have manifested before age 18. This is assessed through school records, childhood medical records, testimony from family members and teachers, and any prior psychological evaluations. In many capital cases, the records from childhood and adolescence are incomplete or difficult to obtain which is why thorough post-conviction investigation is essential.

 

Competency to Be Executed: A Separate Question

The Atkins analysis addresses whether a person’s intellectual disability was present at the time of the offense and bars execution on that basis. Texas also has a separate procedural protection: the competency-to-be-executed standard established in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986), and clarified in Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007). A person is incompetent to be executed if they are unaware that they are about to be executed and the reason why. This is a lower bar than Atkins so it does not permanently bar execution, only suspends it until competency is restored. The Jordan case involved both: he was found incompetent to be executed in 1988, and his attorney ultimately succeeded in demonstrating that his intellectual disability barred the death sentence entirely under Atkins.

 

What the Jordan Case Reveals About the System

The most troubling aspect of the Jordan case is not the constitutional violation itself. It is how long it took to correct. A court found Jordan incompetent to be executed in 1988. That finding should have triggered ongoing review of his case. Instead, he went without legal representation for approximately 36 years. The constitutional protection existed on paper; it simply was not enforced because no attorney was present to enforce it.

Jordan’s case is an extreme example of a systemic problem: Texas’s post-conviction capital defense system has historically been under-resourced and underfunded. The Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, the agency that ultimately took Jordan’s case, was not established until 2010 which was twenty-two years after Jordan was found incompetent to be executed. And even after its establishment, cases like Jordan’s required the external pressure of a documented court backlog to surface.

The Harris County backlog issue that led to Jordan’s representation is itself significant. Harris County (the most populous county in Texas and historically one of the most active capital punishment jurisdictions in the country) had delayed criminal appeals sitting unaddressed for years. When that backlog was surfaced and addressed, Jordan was among the people who finally got a lawyer. The outcome in his case illustrates what competent post-conviction advocacy can accomplish even decades after a trial.

 

Post-Conviction Relief in Texas Capital Cases

The Jordan ruling is a reminder that capital cases in Texas are subject to ongoing constitutional challenge through the state habeas corpus process. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 11.071 governs habeas proceedings in capital cases and provides for a separate post-conviction review independent of the direct appeal. The federal habeas process under 28 U.S.C. §2254 provides an additional layer of review in federal court.

Post-conviction claims that can affect a capital sentence in Texas include:

• Atkins intellectual disability claims, including claims based on trial counsel’s failure to adequately investigate and present intellectual disability evidence.
• Ineffective assistance of counsel at trial or on direct appeal, under the standard established in Strickland v. Washington.
• Brady violations which is the prosecution’s failure to disclose material exculpatory or impeachment evidence.
• Newly discovered evidence that would probably produce a different result at a new trial.
• Juror misconduct.
• Constitutional claims based on subsequently decided Supreme Court precedent, including Atkins, Moore, Roper v. Simmons (juvenile offenders), and related decisions.

These claims must typically be raised in an initial state habeas application, and procedural rules limit the ability to raise new claims in subsequent applications. The quality and thoroughness of post-conviction investigation at the earliest possible stage is therefore critical.

 

What This Means for Families Facing Capital Charges in Texas

If you are facing murder charges in Texas (particularly charges that could result in a capital prosecution) the intellectual disability framework established in Atkins and clarified in Moore is a constitutional protection that must be identified and pursued from the very beginning of the case, not as an afterthought at punishment. This means:

• Early neuropsychological evaluation to document intellectual functioning using current clinical standards and instruments.
• Thorough investigation of developmental history including school records, childhood medical records, family history, and testimony from people who knew the defendant before age 18.
• Adaptive behavior assessment using standardized instruments and interviews with informants across multiple settings.
• Retention of qualified forensic psychologists or neuropsychologists who can testify to current clinical diagnostic criteria, not outdated frameworks.
• Identification of any prior evaluations (including evaluations that may have used outdated standards) and expert analysis of how those results should be understood under current clinical guidance.

Deandra Grant Law handles murder defense across North and Central Texas.

 

If you or a family member is facing murder charges or a capital prosecution in Texas, call (214) 225-7117 for a free, confidential consultation. Or schedule online at texasdwisite.com.