State of Mississippi v. Kevin Scott

MAXWELL, JUSTICE,

FOR THE COURT:

¶ 1. A Bolivar County Circuit Court judge ruled death-row inmate Kevin Scott was intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment. 1 The State has appealed. It argues: (1) the trial judge ignored the mandate of Scott II, 2 which directed Scott take a specific malingering test before his intellectual-disability hearing; (2) the trial judge abused his discretion when he permitted Scott’s experts to testify at the intellectual-disability hearing; and (3) the trial judge failed to make independent findings of fact and…