USA . Arkansas. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals orders a hearing for Alvin Jackson

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has again reversed a lower court and ordered another hearing on whether Alvin Jackson (48, Black) is sufficiently intellectually disabled to be disqualified for execution. Jackson was sentenced to death on June 20, 1996 in the November 1995 stabbing death of Sgt. Scott Grimes, 41, at the Department of Correction’s Tucker Unit. At the time, Jackson was serving a 60-year sentence in the 1989 slaying of Charles R. Colclasure, 47. The court said the district judge who ruled against Jackson didn't have the benefit of a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision on how to weigh the disability issue and it said Jackson should get a hearing on his challenge of a new diagnostic test. Competing experts testified, with the state's indicating Jackson's intellectual capacity hovered near the questionable mark.