the Summit County Court of Common Pleas appointed experts and conducted an evidentiary hearing on White’s claim. At that hearing, both the expert psychologist selected by the state and the expert psychologist selected by the defense testified that, based on their examinations of White, the results of scientific tests and information they gathered from persons who had known and interacted with White, he met the three Lott criteria for classification as mentally retarded.

Nonetheless, the trial judge disagreed:

Notwithstanding the testimony of the expert witnesses, however, the trial court ... agreed that White’s low scores on intelligence tests met the “subaverage intellectual functioning” test in Lott, but held that White had not presented evidence sufficient to establish a significant lack of adaptive skills or the onset of his limitations prior to age 18, and therefore failed to meet the second and third parts of the Lott test.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled today the Judge was wrong.

“According to the undisputed testimony of the expert witnesses in this case, the facts stated in Kawczk’s testimony are in no way inconsistent with mild mental retardation. The mentally retarded are not necessarily devoid of all adaptive skills. Indeed, ‘they may look relatively normal in some areas and have certain significant limitations in other areas.’ Mildly retarded persons can play sports, write, hold jobs, and drive. ... For example, the trial court’s opinion mentions twice that White was a licensed driver. However, Dr. Hammer testified that a mildly retarded individual can qualify for a driver’s license and that licensed-driver status is not a good criterion for distinguishing between people who are and are not retarded.”

“Similarly, the trial court found that White ‘was adept at video games, including ... “Mortal Kombat.”’ It is not clear, however, what relevance White’s video-game skills have to mental retardation. Dr. Hammer testified that Mortal Kombat ‘doesn’t require a lot of planning [or] strategizing’ and can be played by children younger than ten. ... We conclude that the trial court abused its discretion when it determined that White had failed to prove the existence of significant adaptive-skills limitations. In this case, the trial court failed to set forth any rational basis grounded in the evidence for rejecting the uncontradicted testimony of two qualified expert witnesses in the field of psychology.”

The Court found further error by the Judge on the third prong of the test,:

....which was that White failed to demonstrate that his intellectual and adaptive deficits were present prior to the age of 18. While the trial court found that White had not affirmatively proved onset before age 18, Justice Cupp found that conclusion to be based almost entirely on the absence of scientific test results because White had not been given either an IQ or an adaptive skills test before age 18.

...Justice Cupp wrote: “We think the trial court, by rejecting well-supported expert opinion regarding pre-18 onset without any evidence to the contrary, abused its discretion. The trial court gave too much weight to the fact that White’s adaptive skills were never tested before age 18.

....While noting that a trial court “is not required to automatically accept expert opinions offered from the witness stand,” Justice Cupp wrote: “(E)xpert opinion ‘may not be arbitrarily ignored’ ... While the trial court is the trier of fact, it may not disregard credible and uncontradicted expert testimony in favor of lay witnesses or the court’s own expectations of how a mentally retarded person would behave. Doing so takes an arbitrary, unreasonable attitude to the evidence before the court and results in an abuse of discretion.”