Death-Row Inmate Wins Reprieve on Intellectual Disability Claim

An Arkansas death-row inmate’s evidence supported his claim that he’s intellectually disabled and shouldn’t be executed, the Eighth Circuit said Friday.

Alvin Jackson was on death row because he killed a prison guard in 1996 while already serving a life sentence for a separate murder. After exhausting his state appeals, he filed for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.

Jackson’s petition bounced between the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit four times before his death sentence was vacated.

Under current U.S. Supreme Court standards, Jackson ...