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In any other state in the country Ladd鈥檚 condition would have made him ineligible for execution. Texas, however, uses non-scientific factors to narrow the field of persons with intellectual disability who qualify for exemption from execution, drawn in part from the character of Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

The Supreme Court has twice ruled to protect the intellectually disabled from capital punishment: Atkins v. Virginia (2002) and Hall v. Florida (2014). Those decisions should have exempted Mr. Ladd from execution, as he was labeled 鈥渇airly obviously retarded鈥� by the Texas Youth Commission in 1970.

After the Atkins decision, the psychiatrist who had examined Mr. Ladd reviewed his notes and reaffirmed his initial diagnosis in an affidavit, stating his IQ test and 鈥渢hree separate interviews confirmed my diagnosis of mental retardation.鈥� At age 36, Mr. Ladd qualified for services at the Andrews Center in Tyler, Texas, which assists the intellectually disabled as well as the mentally ill.