Hamm v. Smith · ¶145

Second, if a defendant fails to provide the information necessary to compute a composite score, the “next best practice” for estimating someone's “true” IQ is to take the median value of his scores. Watson 124. The median score is a “reasonable estimate” of a defendant's “true” IQ that is “appropriate and useful” where the 95% confidence intervals for all of an individual's scores overlap. APA Handbook 415. Thus, when this condition is met, courts adjudicating Atkins claims can “reasonabl[y]” and “appropriate[ly]” conclude that a defendant's IQ is above 70 when his median score exceeds 70. APA Handbook 415.

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