Suspect ruled eligible for execution if convicted
LaTonya Taylor, 26, of Nashville scored less than the state standard for retardation, 70, on all but one IQ test she’s taken. But Rutherford County Circuit Court Judge Don Ash felt the one test, taken in 1985 when Taylor was 7 years old, was “significant.”
“Considering the testimony and the exhibits filed in this matter, the court finds significance in the full-scale score of 81 achieved by the defendant at age 7,” Ash said Monday.
Taylor’s attorneys, Hershell Koger and Paul Bruno, were not available for comment. District Attorney General Bill Whitesell also could not be reached.
Tennessee state law was changed in 1990 to prohibit the execution of mentally retarded people. A 2001 state Supreme Court ruling extended that protection to mentally retarded inmates who went on death row before 1990. They can be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison without parole.
Taylor also did not meet a second condition for mental retardation, Ash said. She does not have deficits in adaptive behavior because she was able to adjust to her surroundings and situations, he said, meaning she is not mentally retarded.
The third criterion, onset of retardation before age 18, was irrelevant because Taylor did not meet the first two standards, the judge said.
Three Captain D’s employees — Scott Myers, Bryan Speight and Troy Snell — were killed just after closing on July 12, 2000. Statements by witnesses and suspects to police say the men were killed when Taylor and co-defendant Percy Palmer, 24, went to the restaurant to collect a $400 drug debt from Snell.
The bodies of Speight and Myers were found in the restaurant freezer. Snell was found dead in his car parked behind a nearby strip mall. All three had been shot in the head.
Mental health experts testified that Taylor is of subpar mental functioning but not retarded. One state-employed psychologist testified Taylor has “borderline intellectual function.”
Taylor scored 81 on a test she took in 1985 and had taken four intelligence tests since then. On the first, in June 1993, she scored a 61. On the second, in October 2003, she scored a 62. In January 2004, she scored a 69 and a 67.
Taylor and Palmer remain jailed.