Page:Bobby James Moore v. Texas.pdf/7

Rh referred than upon Moore’s apparent adaptive strengths. See Moore, 581 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12) (criticizing the appeals court’s “overemphas[is]” upon Moore’s “perceived adaptive strengths”); supra, at 3. The appeals court’s discussion of Moore’s “[c]ommunication [s]kills” does not discuss the evidence relied upon by the trial court. Ex parte Moore II, 548 S. W. 3d, at 563–565. That evidence includes the young Moore’s inability to understand and answer family members, even a failure on occasion to respond to his own name. App. to Pet. for Cert. 289a–290a. Its review of Moore’s “[r]eading and [w]riting” refers to deficits only in observing that “in prison, [Moore] progressed from being illiterate to being able to write at a seventh-grade level.” Ex parte Moore II, 548 S. W. 3d, at 565. But the trial court heard, among other things, evidence that in school Moore was made to draw pictures when other children were reading, and that by sixth grade Moore struggled to read at a second-grade level. App. to Pet. for Cert. 290a, 295a.

Instead, the appeals court emphasized Moore’s capacity to communicate, read, and write based in part on pro se papers Moore filed in court. Ex parte Moore II, 548 S. W. 3d, at 565–566. That evidence is relevant, but it lacks convincing strength without a determination about whether Moore wrote the papers on his own, a finding that the court of appeals declined to make. Rather, the court dismissed the possibility of outside help: Even if other inmates “composed” these papers, it said, Moore’s “ability to copy such documents by hand” was “within the realm of only a few intellectually disabled people.” Id., at 565. Similarly, the court of appeals stressed Moore’s “coherent” testimony in various proceedings, but acknowledged that Moore had “a lawyer to coach him” in all but one. Id., at 564, and n. 95. As for that pro se hearing, the court observed that Moore read letters into the record “without any apparent difficulty.” Ibid.