USA - Alabama. The Court of Criminal Appeals re-affirmed the death sentence for Anthony Lane

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals re-affirmed the death sentence for Anthony Lane, who claims he is intellectually disabled and shouldn't be executed. The U.S. Supreme Court in October had vacated Lane's sentence and ordered the Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals to take another look at Lane's sentence and his claims of intellectual disability. Anthony Lane, 26, Black, was convicted in 2011 in the in the May 22, 2009 shooting death of 57-year-old Frank Wright during the commission of a robbery (see APRIL 4 and MAY 23, 2011). On Oct. 5, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated Lane's sentence and remanded it back to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama for further consideration. The high court asked the Alabama appeals court to look at the case in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 ruling that declared unconstitutional Florida's method of determining whether a capital murder defendant is intellectually disabled. Under Florida law, the definition of intellectual disability required an IQ test score of 70 or less. If a prisoner was deemed to have an IQ above 70 then any further investigation of whether the inmate was intellectual disability was abandoned. But the supreme court justices held that that Florida's "rigid rule ... creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is unconstitutional." The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled, Lane is due no relief under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Florida case.