TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jul 6, 2020

The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear the case of Tennessee death row inmate David Keen, who claims he should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled. In a petition filed in January, Keen’s lawyers said tests from 2008 and 2010 prove their client’s intellectual disability but there is no procedural mechanism in Tennessee to reopen the case. Attorneys for the state opposed the petition, arguing that in 1997, Keen presented evidence that included a much higher IQ. Keen was sentenced to death for the 1990 rape and murder of an 8-year-old in Shelby County. WKRN has the story.