The state Supreme Court questioned whether death row inmate Bayan Aleksey has an intellectual disability during a hearing on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (File/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA — Whether a death row inmate could have purposely skewed his IQ results lower in an effort to escape execution was a central question Wednesday for South Carolina’s Supreme Court justices.
Bayan Aleksey was sentenced to death in September 1998 for killing Sgt. Franklin Lingard, a Highway Patrol officer who pulled him over in Orangeburg County for speeding on New Year’s Eve 1997.
Aleksey, who lived in Philadelphia at the time, was stopped for going 80 mph on Interstate 95. He shot the 39-year-old officer four times through the driver’s side window. Investigators later found Aleksey was driving a stolen Mustang with Delaware plates and had multiple warrants out for his arrest on fraud charges in other states, according to court records.
The now-57-year-old shouldn’t face execution for the shooting because he has an intellectual disability, his attorneys argued during the appeals process. They didn’t point to a specific diagnosis of a disability but instead highlighted Aleksey’s general difficulties learning and low IQ scores.
Technically, the primary issue at Wednesday’s hearing was whether an appeals court should have allowed a social worker’s written testimony on Aleksey’s day-to-day functioning that his attorneys said would have shown proof of his disability.
But justices also questioned Aleksey’s competency in general, including the accuracy of his IQ test results.
The state Supreme Court could overturn the lower court’s decision, deciding Aleksey was exempt from execution, or send the case back to Circuit Court to reconsider, this time with the written testimony. Or, the court could decide Aleksey’s lawyers didn’t prove the lower court was wrong and uphold the judge’s decision.
Regardless, the case is almost certain to continue, either back in the lower courts or in appeals to the federal courts.
Justices questioned whether Aleksey may have deliberately given wrong answers or failed to try his best on the tests in an effort to make himself appear to have a learning disability, knowing that could keep him from execution.
When a school psychologist tested Aleksey as a child, his results in the high 80s and low 90s showed he had average or slightly below average intelligence. But in tests over the past 20 years of court proceedings, through Aleksey’s 30s and 40s, his results dropped to levels that could indicate an intellectual disability, according to court documents.
“How do we deal with this disparity?” Chief Justice John Kittredge asked.
Aleksey’s IQ was rated in the low 70s four times over the course of 20 years, as various criminal psychologists tested him, said one of his attorneys, Allison Franz. For his scores to stay consistent, Aleksey would have to perform the same each time, she said.
“That is extremely difficult to do and extremely unlikely,” said Franz, who works for Justice360, which specializes in defending death row inmates.
Experts who administer IQ tests can work in an additional test to determine whether a person is actually struggling or putting in little effort. Aleksey’s record on those extra assessments is mixed. In one case, the tester found he wasn’t trying his hardest; in another, the assessment determined he was. Sometimes, the experts didn’t do the extra test, leaving no answers, she said.
Aleksey has not been formally diagnosed with an intellectual disability, said Melody Brown, who argued on behalf of the state for the attorney general’s office. Doctors have diagnosed him with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, more commonly known as ADHD, but that’s not enough to keep him from execution, Brown said.
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“That is not a condition that prevents learning,” Brown said. “That’s not a condition that freezes his intellectual capability.”
A person’s IQ test results can determine whether they have a significant impairment in their intellectual functioning, the first of three requirements the U.S. Supreme Court set to determine whether someone is intellectually disabled.
An inmate who is intellectually disabled would also have problems in their day-to-day functioning, which the social worker involved in Aleksey’s case was supposed to prove, and have symptoms while their brain was still developing, which Aleksey’s attorneys argued means age 22.
Despite IQ tests showing Aleksey had an average intelligence, he struggled in school as a child, suggesting some sort of disability during childhood, Franz said.
Or, Aleksey could have struggled because of his poor attendance, said Justice Letitia Verdin.
“He just didn’t show up,” Verdin said. “He didn’t even come to school.”
Maybe he was struggling in school because he wasn’t going, or maybe he wasn’t going because he was struggling, Franz said, calling it a “chicken or the egg” situation, suggesting it’s impossible to determine which was the cause and which was the consequence.
Verdin wasn’t so sure.
“Well, you can’t do well in school without showing up,” Verdin said. “That’s for sure.”
If Aleksey had an intellectual disability, an expert who examined him for competency to stand trial or one of the many judges who have reviewed his case over the years would have realized it, Brown said.
Aleksey’s case has been in the appeals process for 27 years, Brown said. It is almost certain to continue for years as attorneys appeal the state Supreme Court’s decision to the federal courts. Most death row cases move at a snail’s pace as attorneys hash out any possible concerns.
Death row inmate convicted of killing 2 cops is competent for execution, SC judge says
Aleksey is one of 23 inmates on death row after executions resumed in 2024, following a 13-year hiatus caused in part by the lack of availability of lethal injection drugs.
Two laws, one adding the firing squad as an option and another shielding the source of drugs used in executions, restarted the process in September 2024.
Two death row inmates who have exhausted their other appeals have cases pending with the state Supreme Court arguing they are also incompetent for execution.
Gary Terry, who was convicted in 1997 of raping and killing a woman in her West Columbia home, is similarly arguing that he has an intellectual disability, though attorneys have said his is because of a brain injury caused by a small stroke.
Attorneys for Steven Bixby, sentenced to death in 2007 for killing two police officers during a daylong standoff in his family’s Abbeville home, contend he is incompetent because of “bizarre and paranoid” beliefs. A lower court judge found that Bixby’s beliefs were proof not of mental illness but strongly held religious and political convictions.
Another three death row inmates can’t face execution because judges have either found them incompetent or their cases remain pending with lower court judges.
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Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
