U.S. Supreme Court denies Texas death row inmate’s intellectual disability claim
By Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune
June 22, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a Texas death row inmate’s request to present evidence that he is ineligible for execution because of his intellectual disability, despite rare support between defense attorneys and prosecutors for the appeal.
Victor Saldaño was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Paul King, a 46–year-old computer salesman. Saldaño and an accomplice forced King into their car at gunpoint in Plano and drove him to a secluded area, where they robbed him and shot him several times.
Saldaño asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2024 to grant him the opportunity to present evidence of his intellectual disability that would make him constitutionally ineligible for execution. That evidence includes three IQ tests — including one from the state — that found Saldaño within the range for intellectual disability, as well as interviews with 13 people who knew him before and during his incarceration.
It is unconstitutional under Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment to execute defendants who are found to be intellectually disabled, a precedent established by the Supreme Court in 2002.
The CCA denied the request to review the evidence, which Saldaño appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a rare circumstance of agreement, Collin County attorneys representing the state joined Saldaño, submitting its own petition to the court requesting it reverse the CCA’s denial.
Saldaño’s petition was ultimately denied Monday, with the Supreme Court providing no written opinion on its decision.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the CCA’s refusal to remand Saldaño’s case on the intellectual disability claims “severely undermines the State’s interest in ensuring the legitimacy of its criminal system.” Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan joined in the dissenting opinion.
“Here, the State admirably sought to fulfill its responsibilities by ensuring that, if it is going to take Saldaño’s life, that grave act will comport with the Constitution’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment,” Sotomayor wrote. “The TCCA did not satisfy its reciprocal obligations.”
The Supreme Court has twice forced the CCA to correct how it evaluates intellectual disability claims in the past decade, requiring the state’s highest criminal court to use updated medical standards to determine whether a convicted inmate was intellectually disabled. Since 2017, 20 men with intellectual disability claims have been removed from death row.
The Supreme Court struck down another death row inmate’s intellectual disability claim in May after a federal appeals court granted a brief stay of execution. Edward Busby became the 600th person executed by Texas since 1982, after the Supreme Court removed the block on his execution that had been placed less than a week before over concerns about his eligibility.
The evidence Saldaño’s attorneys argue prove his ineligibility for execution was gathered after the state had moved to schedule an execution date for him in 2021. The Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, representing Saldaño, gathered the interviews after both parties agreed to pause setting the execution date.
Members of the office traveled to Argentina to meet with his former friends and family, who described Saldaño as having an “inability to appropriately bathe, clothe, or feed himself,” according to court records.
While the appeal struck down on Monday was Saldaño’s first based on intellectual disability, his case was previously granted a new punishment hearing in 2003 by a federal district judge over concerns about racially discriminatory expert testimony at his trial. Saldaño was again sentenced to death in 2004 in a new punishment trial where his attorney did not present evidence related to his intellectual disability, according to his petition.
Saldaño, who is from Argentina, is one of at least 10 men currently on death row who were undocumented immigrants when they were charged with their crimes. There are currently 165 people on Texas’ death row.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.