Full opinion text
OPINION ROGERS, Circuit Judge. Heck Van Tran, a Tennessee prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the district court’s judgment denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Van Tran raised twenty-six claims in his original habeas petition. The district court and this court have certified three claims for this appeal: (1) whether Van Tran is intellectually disabled and his execution would therefore violate the Eighth Amendment under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002); (2) whether, as applied to Van Tran’s crime, the “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravating circumstance of the capital jury instruction violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments; and (3) whether Van Tran’s penalty phase counsel was ineffective, thereby violating the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court committed no error in denying the writ of habeas corpus on the second and third claims. With respect to the first claim, however, because the Tennessee state court’s decision did not apply the proper legal standard for assessing whether Van Tran has intellectual disability, which was announced in a recent decision of the Tennessee Supreme Court, the district court’s judgment must be vacated and remanded. In accordance with the Supreme Court’s command that the procedural scheme for enforcing Atkins is within the state’s purview and because the State is faced with a state law — imposed procedural burden it could not have anticipated at the time of the original state-court Atkins hearing, we remand for the entry of a conditional writ of habeas corpus to allow the state courts to consider Van Tran’s Atkins claim under the proper, now-governing standard. I. Heck Van Tran was born in 1966 in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War, the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American serviceman. Van Tran’s father died two years after his birth. Van Tran and his mother lived in poverty, and as a young child Van Tran suffered severe social deprivation and inadequate support. He began speaking at a late age, although even after beginning to speak he had difficulty articulating words and spoke infrequently and in short phrases. He and his mother were relocated to Memphis by a charitable organization in 1983. He attended one year of school in the United States, during which he had good attendance but got poor grades. He dropped out in 1984. In October 1987, Van Tran and three accomplices participated in an armed robbery of the Jade East Restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, where Van Tran had been employed and from which he had been fired a month or two before. During the robbery, three people were killed. A fourth, a seventy-five-year-old woman, was beaten and knocked unconscious. The victims were all related and worked in the restaurant together. The robbers obtained a few jewelry cases from the restaurant’s back office, and two diamond rings, a necklace, and a watch that were taken from the survivor’s person. A detailed summary of the incident, including the ensuing interstate manhunt, is found in the Tennessee Supreme Court’s statement of the facts at State v. Van Tran, 864 S.W.2d 465, 468-70 (Tenn.1993). For the purposes of this appeal, it suffices to summarize a few additional facts. During the robbery, Van Tran twice shot Kai Yin Chuey, a slight, seventy-four-year-old woman. The first time he shot her through her windpipe, although he claims that this was an accident. A few moments later, he placed the gun directly against the back of her skull and shot her again, killing her instantly. During the robbery, two others were killed. Van Tran shot one of them in the face; his accomplices shot the other while Van Tran collected the loot. Six months later, Van Tran was arrested in Houston, where he confessed that he participated in the robbery. After trial, Van Tran was convicted of three counts of felony murder; he was sentenced to death for each count on the basis of two aggravating circumstances, one of which was that the murder was found to be “especially cruel in that it involved depravity of mind.” Id. at 470. On direct appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Van Tran’s convictions on the three counts of felony murder, but reversed his sentence of death for two of the three murders, affirming the death sentence only for the murder of Kai Yin Chuey. Id. at 482. In arriving'at this decision, the state supreme court disapproved of the deletion of the words “heinous” and “atrocious” from the aggravating circumstance instruction. However, the court ultimately affirmed on the grounds that the curtailed instruction did not likely confuse the jurors, that the jury still made the dispositive “depravity of mind” finding, and relatedly, that the failure to include those terms in the instruction had no effect on the result. Id. at 479. In addition, the Tennessee Supreme Court independently determined that there was sufficient evidence presented at trial to find that the killing of Kai Yin Chuey evinced “depravity of mind.” Id. at 480. In making this determination, the court summarized the murder in the following manner: In [Kai Yin Chuey’s] case we have a helpless 74-year-old woman, who had already been shot by the Defendant and was lying on the floor unable to protect herself when the Defendant put a gun to the back of her head and shot her a second time. We find the evidence of this brutal and senseless execution of a helpless old woman sufficient to support this aggravating circumstance in the murder of Kai Yin Chuey. Id. Van Tran filed a state postconviction petition in March 1995, claiming, among other things, that he received ineffective assistance of counsel and that he should not be executed because he is mentally retarded and incompetent. After being denied relief in the postconviction trial court, Van Tran appealed to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), where the trial court’s judgment was affirmed. Van Tran v. State, No. 02C01-9803-CR-00078, 1999 WL 177560, at *13 (Tenn.Ct. CrimApp. Apr. 1, 1999). Regarding Van Tran’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to investigate and present additional mitigating evidence during the penalty phase, the appellate court found that trial counsel conducted a proper investigation and that there was no prejudice. Id. at *11-12. As to whether Van Tran’s execution was prohibited by state statute because of his mental retardation, the appeals court deferred to the postcon-viction trial court’s finding that Van Tran’s I.Q. was above 70, which was based upon the State’s expert’s testimony that Van Tran’s expert had misread the manual related to I.Q. calculation and had arrived at an erroneously low figure. Id. at *6. With respect to only the issue of whether Van Tran’s execution was prohibited because of mental retardation, Van Tran’s petition eventually reached the Tennessee Supreme Court, which took up the case “in order to clarify the procedure by which a prisoner who has been sentenced to death may raise the issue of present mental competency to be executed.” Van Tran v. State, 6 S.W.3d 257, 260 (Tenn.1999). The court denied Van Tran’s request for relief primarily on the ground that the issue of his competency for the purposes of execution was not ripe for resolution, because the execution was not imminent. Id. at 274. Van Tran filed a motion to reopen his postconviction petition in February 2000, alleging that new evidence established that he was mentally retarded and was therefore ineligible for the death penalty under state law. When this petition reached the Tennessee Supreme Court, that court announced as an issue of first impression that execution of mentally retarded persons was prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790, 809 (Tenn.2001). The state supreme court remanded to the postcon-viction trial court for a hearing on the issue of whether Van Tran qualified as mentally retarded. Id. at 812. Furthermore, the court held that mental retardation, for the purposes of the state and federal constitutions, was defined by the Tennessee Code. The code defined mental retardation, for the purposes of prohibiting the execution of those with mental retardation, according to the following three necessary criteria: “(1) significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning as evidenced by a functional intelligence quotient (I.Q.) of seventy (70) or below; (2) deficits in adaptive behavior; and (3) mental retardation manifested during the developmental period, or by eighteen (18) years of age.” Id. (citing Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-203 (1997)). Within a year, the United States Supreme Court would similarly hold that the execution of persons with mental retardation violates the United States Constitution. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). On remand, the postconviction trial court held a trial to determine whether Van Tran was mentally retarded as defined by § 39-13-203 of the Tennessee Code. At the trial, two psychologists testified that Van Tran is mentally retarded under the statute’s definition. Van Tran v. State, 2006 WL 3327828, at *2-13 (Tenn. Ct.Crim.App. Nov. 9, 2006). Both doctors based their conclusions on tests personally administered to Van Tran, his institutional records, and interviews with him, his mother, and others who knew him. In addition to finding that Van Tran currently has an I.Q. of seventy or below and suffers from numerous deficits in adaptive behavior, both experts concluded that Van Tran’s deficits manifested themselves during the developmental period, before Van Tran was eighteen years old. Dr. Daniel Grant based this conclusion on a social history that discussed Van Tran’s late language skills, his difficulties in school, and his lack of success in living independently. Id. at *5. Dr. Pamela Auble based her conclusion that Van Tran’s impairments appeared during the developmental period on numerous risk factors provided in the tenth edition of the American Association on Mental Retardation’s reference manual, including a traumatic brain injury during youth, malnutrition, poverty, lack of social resources, and prenatal maternal smoking. Id. at *11; see also American Association on Mental Retardation, Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports 127 tbl. 8.1 (10th ed. 2002) (“AAMR 10th ”). The State presented no testimony to contradict the findings of Van Tran’s experts, although it did test Van Tran’s experts with some cross-examination. The postconviction trial court denied Van Tran’s request for relief, finding that he had not demonstrated mental retardation under the Tennessee statute by a preponderance of the evidence. Van Tran, 2006 WL 3327828, at *15. Although the court found that Van Tran satisfied the first prong by proving that he has a functional I.Q. of seventy or below, the court determined that Van Tran had failed to meet his burden of proof for the second and third prongs. With respect to the second prong, the existence of deficits in adaptive behavior, the court found that Van Tran had demonstrated an adaptive deficit in only one area, that of communication. The court weighed the experts’ testimony against evidence that Van Tran had held a few jobs and had occasionally cooked for and eared for others. The court held that, in light of the evidence of Van Tran’s at least somewhat successful social and individual functioning, he had not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffered adaptive deficits in the areas of self-direction, social interpersonal skills, personal health and safety, or functional academies. Id. at *16. Because the court found that Van Tran suffered from a deficit in only one area of adaptive functioning, it concluded that Van Tran did not meet the second prong. Regarding the third prong, the trial court found that Van Tran had not presented sufficient evidence demonstrating the manifestation of deficits before the age of eighteen. The court noted that no test of intellectual functioning was administered prior to Van Tran’s incarceration and that neither testifying expert “could offer any real proof to establish that the deficits occurred prior to the age of eighteen.” Id. at *17. The court also noted that Van Tran’s current deficits, rather than being caused by neurological deficit, could have been caused by neglect or paranoid schizophrenia, which had not been diagnosed for many years. Id. On appeal, the TCCA affirmed the trial court’s denial of Van Tran’s request for relief. Id. at *27. The appellate court agreed with the trial court that some of the adaptive functioning tests used by Van Tran’s experts were untrustworthy because they relied on interviews with people that either had not observed Van Tran frequently or had not observed him in a non-institutionalized setting. Id. at *23. The appellate court emphasized Van Tran’s unique position, suggesting that Van Tran’s limited education, history of drug and alcohol use, schizophrenia, and lack of ordinary life experiences all negatively impacted the effectiveness of the living skills tests that were used by the experts: We agree with the trial court’s assessment that the Petitioner is in a unique position. The Petitioner was born in Vietnam. There is no question that the Petitioner’s childhood was atypical. His social history reveals abuse, neglect, and social ostracism. He essentially “lived on the streets” until age seventeen when he came to this country through the assistance of Catholic Charities. The Petitioner’s formal schooling was limited to several years in Vietnam and about one year in this country. The Petitioner has spent the majority of his time in this country incarcerated. While the Petitioner’s experts maintained that the Petitioner was more proficient in the English language than in Vietnamese, proof at the Petitioner’s original post-conviction hearing indicated that the Petitioner had difficulty communicating with trial counsel until a Vietnamese interpreter was appointed. A social worker with Catholic Charities testified that the Petitioner spoke and understood the Vietnamese language. The Petitioner has a history of drug and alcohol use. The Petitioner has also been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The proof also corroborates the trial court’s conclusion that the Petitioner was in a position unique to most American adults. Dr. Grant conceded that the Petitioner had probably-never “filled out a check, or a money order.” Moreover, there is no indication that the testing questions took into account the Petitioner’s lifestyle in Vietnam or that he has spent the majority of his adult life incarcerated. Accordingly, we agree with the trial court’s assessment that little weight should be given to the Petitioner’s below average score on the Independent Living Scale. Id. at *24, The court also found: The circumstances of the Petitioner’s crime belie any assertion that the Petitioner suffered from any deficit in intellectual ability or adaptive skills. The Petitioner had previously been employed by the victims of his crime. He knew the layout of the restaurant and knew that jewelry was kept on the premises. The Petitioner did the talking with one of the victims at the onset of the crime. The Petitioner was the person that went into the office to collect the jewelry. After the crime, the Petitioner escaped with two of his co-defendants to Houston, Texas, where it was the Petitioner who arranged to sell the jewelry to a Vietnamese man for $4,000. It was also the Petitioner who paid this man from the proceeds and divided the money with his two co-defendants. Id. at *25. Finally, the appellate court determined that Van Tran had not demonstrated that his intellectual deficits manifested themselves prior to his reaching the age of eighteen: The Petitioner had not been administered any test of intellectual functioning prior to reaching the age of eighteen, and no testing was performed until ten years after his incarceration. The only proof establishing this third prong [was] reliance upon social factors present in the Petitioner’s childhood, including extreme poverty and child abuse. In this regard, we cannot conclude that the trial court’s conclusion that the Petitioner’s late development could have been the result of “neglect” rather than neurological deficit was in error or contrary to the evidence. The evidence of poverty, child abuse, lack of education, family dysfunction and poor social conditions are not enough to demonstrate that any deficits manifested during the developmental period. The proof established that the Petitioner supported himself, took care of others, and was employed. The proof also established that the Petitioner, with the aid of an interpreter, was able to assist and communicate with his trial attorneys. The occurrences of these abilities all occurred after the age of eighteen. Moreover, we conclude that the fact that the Petitioner admits to alcohol and drug abuse and the fact that he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia may have impaired his brain functioning. Finally, Dr. Auble’s litany of potential “risk factors” fail to provide sufficient facts to support the conclusion that any impairments were revealed during the developmental period. Accordingly, Petitioner cannot satisfy the third prong of the test for mental retardation. Id. at *26. Tran originally filed his federal habeas petition in May 2000. In May 2001, the district court entered an order holding the petition in abeyance while Van Tran exhausted his state-court remedies. Tran v. Bell, 145 F.Supp.2d 939 (W.D.Tenn.2001). The district court took the case out of abeyance in April 2007, after which Tran filed an amended petition raising twenty-six claims in December 2007. On September 30, 2010, the district court denied Van Tran’s petition in its entirety. Order, Van Tran v. Bell, No. 00-2451-SMH, at 140 CW.D.Tenn. Sept. 30, 2010) (“District Court Order”). Regarding Van Tran’s Atkins claim, the district court first held that the state court’s determination that Van Tran was not limited in functional academics was an unreasonable determination of the facts based on the evidence presented in the state court. Id. at 64. This determination meant that Van Tran met his burden for the second prong, because the state court had already found that he had a deficit in one other area, that of communication. However, the district court went on to find that the state court was reasonable in its determinations that Van Tran did not suffer from deficits in the areas of self-direction and social/interpersonal skills, on the ground that the state court was able to base its conclusion on record evidence that contradicted the experts’ testimony about Van Tran’s gullibility, lack of personal responsibility, and mental rigidity. Id. at 66-68. Despite finding that the state court was not reasonable in finding that Van Tran did not suffer from deficits in adaptive behavior, the district court found reasonable the state court’s ultimate finding that Van Tran had not sufficiently demonstrated mental retardation, based solely upon Van Tran’s failure to meet the third prong. In particular, the district court held that the state postconviction appellate court’s finding, namely that Van Tran did not sufficiently demonstrate that his intellectual deficits manifested themselves in the developmental stage, was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of federal law, and was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. Id. at 75. The district court reasoned that “[a]n expert’s testimony that an individual is ‘at risk’ of mental retardation because of congenital factors, poverty, and abuse is not enough to support an Atkins claim.” Id. at 74 (citing In re Mathis, 488 F.3d 395, 398-99 (5th Cir.2007)). The court also reasoned that a lack of evidence does not entitle a petitioner to relief. Id. The district court went on to support the state court’s finding: In the instant case, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals’ determination was not based solely oh the fact of Van Tran’s schizophrenia, but also on the lack of evidence available about Van Tran’s early development. The court noted Van Tran’s abilities in contrast to his stated deficits and the possible effects of drug abuse and mental illness on his cognitive abilities. Despite some possibility that Van Tran suffered significant adaptive deficits before age 18, the court’s determination that he failed to meet his burden is neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established precedent, or based on an unreasonable determination of facts in light of the evidence presented. Van Tran has not satisfied the requirements to prove mental retardation and obtain habeas relief for his Atkins claims. Id. at 75. Next, the district court held that the state supreme court’s narrowing construction of the aggravating circumstance was constitutional, because it provided specific and detailed guidance rendering the capital process susceptible to rational review. Id. at 96-97. The court also held that the state supreme court’s determination that there was sufficient evidence to find that the facts of Van Tran’s crime evinced “depravity of mind” was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law and was based on a reasonable determination of the facts. Id. at 98. Regarding the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, the district court held that the state appellate court did not apply the Strickland test unreasonably and did not rely on an unreasonable determination of the facts; the court noted that the evidence that could have been presented at trial was not significantly different from what was actually presented. Id. at 103-04. The district court granted Van Tran a certificate of appealability with respect to claim (2), that he has mental retardation, and claim (4), that the “depravity of mind” aggravating circumstance was unconstitutionally vague as applied. Id. at 140-42. Van Tran moved this court to expand the scope of this appeal, and we subsequently certified claim (7), that Van Tran received ineffective assistance of trial counsel during the penalty phase because his counsel failed to properly investigate and present all available mitigating evidence. II. A. Standard of Review and Governing Law The merits of Van Tran’s habeas claims are governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), under which a writ of habeas corpus may not be granted unless the state court’s adjudication of the claim “(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2)resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); see also Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370, 130 S.Ct. 2250, 2259, 176 L.Ed.2d 1098 (2010). Under the “contrary to” clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law, or if the state court decides a case differently than the Supreme Court on a set of materially indistinguishable facts. Brown v. Payton, 544 U.S. 133, 141, 125 S.Ct. 1432, 161 L.Ed.2d 334 (2005); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412-13, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). To obtain habeas relief, “a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786-87, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). State court determinations of fact are presumed to be correct, and the petitioner bears the burden of rebutting this presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Our review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court. Cullen v. Pin-holster, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 1398, 179 L.Ed.2d 557 (2011). B. Atkins Claim The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of intellectually disabled persons. Hall v. Florida, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 1990, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 321, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). The Supreme Court left to the individual states “the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction.” Atkins, 536 U.S. at 317, 122 S.Ct. 2242. Accordingly, the Atkins Court “did not provide definitive procedural or substantive guides” for enforcing the Atkins protection. Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, 831, 129 S.Ct. 2145, 173 L.Ed.2d 1173 (2009). The Court recently elucidated this vague command: [T]he States play a critical role in advancing protections and providing the [courts] with information that contributes to an understanding of how intellectual disability should be measured and assessed. But Atkins did not give the States unfettered discretion to define the full scope of the constitutional protection. Hall, 134 S.Ct. at 1998, 134 S.Ct. 1986. Thus, the Tennessee legislature and courts have discretion, within reason, to determine the procedures by which the Tennessee courts will ensure that persons with intellectual disability are not executed in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Tennessee legislature and courts also have discretion to define intellectual disability substantively for the purposes of Atkins, but this latter discretion is limited. Tennessee, in accordance with longstanding clinical practice, has adopted the standard definition of intellectual disability with the following three elements: “(1) Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning as evidenced by a functional intelligence quotient (I.Q.) of seventy (70) or below; (2) Deficits in adaptive behavior; and (3) The intellectual disability must have been manifested during the developmental period, or by eighteen (18) years of age.” State v. Pruitt, 415 S.W.3d 180, 202 (Tenn.2013) (quoting Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-203(a)); see also Hall, 134 S.Ct. at 2003. The first prong of the definition of intellectual disability is not at issue, which the State concedes. The second prong was met under the reasoning of the district court, which we uphold on de novo review. Although the state court found that Van Tran had failed to meet the third prong, this was contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law in light of intervening Tennessee law in Coleman v. State, 341 S.W.3d 221 (Tenn.2011), in which the Tennessee Supreme Court explicated the role of expert testimony in a court’s consideration of Atkins claims. Under Coleman ’s guidance, Van Tran should be granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus in order to allow the state postconviction court to reconsider Van Tran’s Atkins claim under the now-governing legal standard. First Prong: Intelligence Quotient With regard to the first prong, the TCCA held that Van Tran had satisfied the first prong of the test because he had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he had a functional I.Q. of 70 or below. Van Tran, 2006 WL 3327828, at *20 (Tenn.Ct.Crim.App. Nov. 9, 2006). The parties do not contest this issue on appeal. Second Prong: Adaptive Deficits With regard to the second prong, although the issue is close, the district court correctly found that the state court unreasonably applied the facts in arriving at the conclusion that Van Tran demonstrated only one adaptive deficit. Overall, the TCCA reasoned in a holistic way that departed unreasonably from the reliable expert analyses used by Van Tran’s experts, which were in accordance with the professionally accepted definitions provided by the statute and the clinical best practices endorsed by the Tennessee Supreme Court. The reliable and professionally vetted methods presented by Van Tran’s experts, from which the legal standards draw their substance, must guide the court’s inquiry. The postconviction trial and appellate courts’ ad hoc, ostensibly commonsense reasoning, by itself, is not sufficient to reject the experts’ conclusions that Van Tran has more than one adaptive deficit. The Tennessee Supreme Court has stated generally that “deficits in adaptive behavior ‘mean[s] the inability of an individual to behave so as to adapt to the surrounding circumstances.’ ” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 248 (quoting State v. Smith, 893 S.W.2d 908, 918 (Tenn.1994)). In order to demonstrate deficits in adaptive behavior sufficient to satisfy the second prong of the intellectual disability test, Tennessee courts typically require the defendant to demonstrate “significant limitations” in two of the following skill areas: “communication, self-care, home living, social/interpersonal skills, use of community resources, self-direction, functional academic skills, work, leisure, health, and safety.” See Van Tran v. State, 66 S.W.3d 790, 795 (Tenn.2001) (citing American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 39 (4th ed. 1994) (‘DSM-TV”)). This approach, as clearly set out in the Van Tran opinion of 2001 and borrowed from the DSM-TV (and its revision, the DSM-TV-TR), was cited with approval by the state supreme court in the recent Coleman opinion. Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 248-49; see also American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 49 (4th rev. ed.2000) (maintaining two-out-of-ten-area framework). Similarly, in Howell v. State, the state supreme court intimated approval of the two-or-more-deficits approach by stating that “the most widely recognized definitions of mental retardation include two basic characteristics: significantly subaverage intellectual functioning accompanied by related limitations in two or more adaptive skill areas (such as self-care, communication, or social skills), and manifestation of the condition before age 18.” 151 S.W.3d 450, 457 (Tenn.2004) (emphasis added). Most importantly, the state postconviction courts below appeared to use this framework in analyzing Van Tran’s adaptive deficits. For these reasons, although other frameworks could be used, it is most appropriate in this case to adhere to the two-out-of-ten framework on habeas review of the state court’s decision. As an initial matter, it is uncontested that Van Tran suffers from deficits in communication, one of the ten areas of adaptive behavior. In order to satisfy the second prong, therefore, Van Tran had to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffers from a deficit in at least one of the other areas. Because we conclude, like the district court below, that it was not reasonable for the Tennessee courts to find no adaptive deficit with respect to functional academics, we need not address the remaining eight factors. The district court correctly determined that the TCCA’s “determination that Van Tran was not limited in functional academics, especially considering the court’s finding that he had deficits in reading proficiency and language skills, was an unreasonable determination of fact based on the evidence presented.” District Court Order at 64. The State’s brief on this appeal devotes little more than a page to refuting this conclusion. Appellee’s Br. at 53-54. The evidence presented in the record demonstrates that Van Tran had significant deficits in the area of functional academics. The state trial court, in an analysis adopted by the TCCA, reasoned as follows in rejecting the functional academics adaptive deficit: Finally, the court further disagrees with the assessment that petitioner suffers deficits in the area of functional academics. The court does not disagree that the petitioner has deficits in the area of reading proficiency and language skills, but finds petitioner’s deficits are more in the area of communication than functional academics. Petitioner only attended school in the United States for one year, and attended school in Vietnam sporadically for a total of only two years. To the court’s knowledge, no records exist from the school(s) in Vietnam. Moreover, on the one test designed to determine petitioner’s functional academic level, petitioner’s score was not below average. Dr. Grant testified that he administered the Kaufman Functional Academic Skills Test and petitioner’s functional ácademic score was 79. In looking at the individual parts of the test, petitioner’s math score was much higher than his reading score. Other testing seemed to indicate the same pattern. Despite the fact that these tests may indicate some academic deficit in the area of reading, this court finds it is unable to say such results indicate an overall deficit in the area of functional academics. This is especially true in light of the court’s conclusion that petitioner does have deficits in communication and Dr. Grant’s testimony that all of the tests were given in English without the aid of an interpreter. While[] Dr. Grant maintains the petitioner’s English skills are better than his Vietnamese, this court finds this fact significant in evaluating the weight to be given to Dr. Grant’s conclusions. Given the fact that the petitioner’s functional academic score was 79; the fact that the petitioner may have had difficulty understanding the testing due to the language barrier; the fact that petitioner has a very limited formal education; and the fact that the only areas where petitioner showed deficiencies were in the areas involving language skills, this court finds the evidence does not establish deficits in the area of functional academics. This discounting of expert testimony was based on the trial court’s refusal to accept the expert conclusions of Van Tran’s witnesses, in light of the district court’s disagreement with the expert opinions as to what the tests indicated and how the test results were affected by the fact that English was Van Tran’s second language. These conclusions, while perhaps reasonable in appearance to a layperson, are in the context of this case too unsupported by the record to be upheld as reasonable. The State presented no testimony to contradict the conclusions of Van Tran’s experts, all of whom agreed that he suffered significant deficits in functional academics. Dr. Adler, a nationally certified school psychologist, testified that Van Tran was “functionally illiterate” and could not, for example, comprehend a newspaper article written at a sixth-grade level. Dr. Grant, a board-certified forensic examiner and neuropsychologist, administered the Kaufman Academic' Skills Test, on which Van Tran scored an arithmetic standard score of 93, a reading standard store of 66, and a functional academic score of 79. Dr. Grant emphasized that the fact that Van Tran does not suffer a “significant deficit” in arithmetic did not change his conclusions, noting that “retarded individuals are just like the rest of us, they have strengths and they have weaknesses.” Dr. Grant testified that Van Tran was reading at a fourth-grade level, and that it was important to note that he continued to read at a fourth-grade level even after eight or nine years of instruction in a G.E.D. program. Similarly, Dr. Auble concluded, based on Van Tran’s plateauing at a fourth grade-level reading skill, that Van Tran demonstrates an adaptive- deficit in functional academics, noting that “he really has not progressed much in terms of his functional academics despite many, many[ ] years of schooling.” The expert testimony explicitly refuted the concern that the tests were affected by the fact that the tests were conducted in English, Van Tran’s non-native language. Dr. Grant explained in his testimony why he decided to conduct his tests on Van Tran in the English language even though Van Tran’s native tongue is Vietnamese. Dr. Grant testified that Van Tran is seriously deficient in Vietnamese and that he performed no better than a child in effectively communicating in Vietnamese. Dr. Grant also noted that his colleague Dr. Wasserman, a bilingual psychologist, had determined that Van Tran’s proficiency in English exceeded his proficiency in Vietnamese and that he would score higher on tests in English than in Vietnamese. A bilingual correctional officer also confirmed that Van Tran’s proficiency in Vietnamese is “very low.” The State presented no evidence contradicting the expert evidence that Van Tran was more proficient in English than Vietnamese. Because the State presented no evidence to support the theory that Van Tran’s tests administered in English were unreliable because they were not given in his native language, the state court unreasonably discredited the testimony of the psychologists who administered Van Tran’s tests in English. Given that there are various considerations in the choice of which language to use, and that the diagnostic tests were administered and interpreted by a member of the professional group that designs and frequently applies the tests, the choice of the language in which to administer the test is reasonably within the clinical discretion of the professional administering the test. Without a contradictory analysis by another member of the profession, a court is in no position to question the professional judgment used in decisions associated with the administration of a clinical diagnostic test. This conclusion finds some support in an Atkins case from the Fifth Circuit. In Rivera v. Quarterman, the Fifth Circuit considered the State of Texas’s argument that the intelligence tests administered to a bilingual capital defendant should have been adjusted upward to compensate for his bilingualism. 505 F.Sd 349, 361 (5th Cir.2007). The psychiatrist who had administered the test testified that she spoke with the defendant before administering the test and had no trouble communicating with him in English. Id. In addition, other witnesses testified that they conversed with the defendant in English and without communication difficulties. Id. However, the State presented the testimony of an expert who explained that the defendant’s bilingualism negatively impacted his verbal acuity and thereby artificially decreased the results of the I.Q. test administered by the defendant’s expert. Id. The Fifth Circuit rejected the State’s argument that the district court erred by crediting the testimony of the psychiatrist who administered the test, largely because, as Texas’s own expert witness acknowledged on the stand, the ultimate decision of which language in which to administer the intelligence tests is a clinical judgment that must be made with the clinician’s professional judgment. Id. at 362. In the present case, the State’s argument that the tests were unreliable is even less plausible, because the State relied neither on a general theory about bilingualism nor on any expert testimony presented. Notwithstanding the TCCA’s general failure to adhere to the clinical framework, the sophistication of the crime and Van Tran’s role in it are mostly irrelevant to the very narrow, clinically defined question of whether Van Tran suffers a deficit in the area of functional academics. In Hooks v. State, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals held that evidence that the defendant ran a prostitution ring was admissible at an Atkins hearing, because a crime that involved a continuing criminal enterprise “requires a level of abstract thought, coupled with the ability to carry out plans, which might be beyond the capabilities of a mentally retarded person.” 126 P.3d 686, 644 (Okla.Ct.Crim.App.2005). By contrast, the court noted that “individual acts of violent crime, such as armed robbery or rape, require little or no abstract thought or complex planning.” Id. Van Tran’s murder is of the latter kind; it was impulsive, committed in the heat of a tense moment during an armed robbery performed with accomplices. Fleeing the jurisdiction with his accomplice does not indicate forethought or planning, but rather an impulsive response to an armed robbery gone awry. Selling the stolen goods is a fairly basic response to the desperate situation in which Van Tran and his accomplice surely found themselves. None of these actions is so sophisticated or elaborate that the intellectually disabled could not have performed it. Furthermore, the overemphasis on certain perceived strengths, inferred from anecdotal evidence, is inconsistent with the expert testimony and accepted professional analyses. Dr. Grant testified that “retarded individuals ... have strengths and they have weaknesses.” Indeed, one of the “essential” assumptions of the clinical definition is: “Within an individual, limitations often coexist with strengths.” AAMR 10th at 1, 8. In Black v. Bell, we noted expert testimony that “someone might be mentally retarded but still be able to carry out any of a number of everyday activities, such as maintaining a simple job or driving a car.” 664 F.3d 81, 99 (6th Cir.2011). Thus, we held that, in light of the expert testimony presented, “[a] full, independent review of whether [the petitioner] showed ... that he displayed adaptive deficits ... must therefore look at his weaknesses instead of at his strengths.” Id.; see also United States v. Davis, 611 F.Supp.2d 472, 499, 501 (D.Md.2009). The irrelevance of Van Tran’s criminal conduct to functional academics is consistent with the TCCA’s decision in Howell v. State, No. W2009-02426-CCA-R3-PD, 2011 WL 2420378 (Tenn.Ct.Crim.App. June 14, 2011). In affirming the postcon-viction trial court’s finding that the defendant did not exhibit at least two deficits in adaptive behavior, the appellate court accepted that “the facts and circumstances of Petitioner’s convictions reflect that Petitioner adapted and adjusted to his surroundings throughout the course of his three state crime spree,” id. at *19, and upheld the trial court’s use of anecdotal evidence to contradict the expert conclusions about “additional deficits in adaptive behavior,” id. at *18. However, the appellate court did not use this assessment to contest the expert testimony presented to demonstrate deficits in academic functioning. See id. Rather, the trial court had accepted the experts’ findings that there were deficits in “academic functioning” and used the anecdotal evidence to counter “claims of additional deficits,” for which “the testing was done retroactively and was contradicted by Petitioner’s conduct.” Id. The most natural reading of the Howell decision supports the use of relevant anecdotal evidence to contradict specific findings regarding individual adaptive deficits, especially where there is a dearth of directed expert testimony regarding those deficits. Here, although Van Tran’s crime and ensuing actions could provide useful data points in assessing adaptive behavior deficits, the persuasive expert testimony that Van Tran suffered a deficit in the area of functional academics was not contradicted by the facts of his conviction. The foregoing does not undermine the court’s ultimate decision-making role. As the Supreme Court said in Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 413, 122 S.Ct. 867, 151 L.Ed.2d 856 (2002), “the science of psychiatry, which informs but does not control ultimate legal determinations, is an ever-advancing science, whose distinctions do not seek precisely to mirror those of the law.” However, where lawmakers deliberately incorporate clinical standards into legal definitions, the courts strain the limits of reasonableness by rejecting expert opinions based exclusively on the courts’ own inexpert analysis. Although “the trial court is not required to follow the opinion of any particular expert,” it “must give full and fair consideration to all the evidence presented.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 242. The Tennessee Supreme Court has emphasized the importance of clinical judgment in guiding the courts to overall more accurate and consistent decisions. See id. at 246-47. • Because the postconviction courts performed an analysis in terms of these ten areas of adaptive deficits, which it borrowed from the methods used by the expert witnesses, our review utilizes the same framework. Adherence to some chosen clinical framework, even if such adherence is not rigid, appears to be required by Tennessee law. In a comprehensive review of the state supreme court’s previous decisions interpreting § 39-13-203, the Coleman court stated that one of the principles guiding the application of the statute is that “[t]he Court’s application of the statute may be guided and informed by the clinical standards, criteria, and practices customarily used to assess and diagnose intellectual disability.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 240 (citing State v. Strode, 232 S.W.3d 1, 14 (Tenn.2007)). Although the use of the term “may” appears permissive, the state supreme court in the same opinion communicated a strong policy in favor of employing clinical definitions, supplied necessarily by experts in the field of intellectual disability, when it stated that “[ajligning the application of the statute with the clinical approach to diagnosing and assessing intellectual disability will result in more accurate and consistent decisions.” See id. at 247. Indeed, the state supreme court has consistently indicated that the clinical definitions, although not binding, have a close semantic relationship to the statutory definition. For example, the Van Tran opinion of 2001 stated that the Tennessee courts refer to the DSM-IV framework for assessing adaptive deficits “for the purpose of providing insight and background into mental retardation,” although not strictly “for the purpose of expanding upon or interpreting the statutory definition in Tennessee.” 66 S.W.3d at 795 n. 4. Citing this statement with approval, the Coleman court stated: “Tennessee courts have thus relied on this [clinical] definition to better understand what the Tennessee Code means by addressing deficits in adaptive behavior.” 341 S.W.3d at 248 n. 86. The ten-area framework from the DSM-IV was cited with approval yet again in the Tennessee Supreme Court’s most recent decision expounding § 39-13-203, which called the DSM-IV’s ten-area framework “[t]he accepted clinical definition of adaptive functioning.” State v. Pruitt, 415 S.W.3d 180, 204 (Tenn.2013). The most reasonable reading of these various propositions is that the courts should be guided, though not constricted, by the two-out-often-area clinical definition from the DSM-IV. More importantly, the court must assess adaptive deficits in light of the expert testimony presented by the parties. The trial court “must give full and fair consideration to all of the evidence presented,” especially the testimony of experts who “bring to bear and utilize reliable practices, methods, standards, and data that are relevant in their particular fields.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 242. Although not mandating any particular analysis for adaptive deficits, the state supreme court in Coleman found that the trial court committed reversible error by distinguishing causally between intellectual disability and mental illness where that distinction was not supported by expert evidence, and hence there “was error in light of the evidence presented by” the defendant’s expert witnesses. Id. at 251-52. Because “[t]he State presented no contrary evidence,” there was “simply no sufficient basis on the present record to” make the conceptual distinction the court made. Id. at 252 (emphasis added). The Tennessee Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Pruitt, 415 S.W.3d 180, (Tenn.2013), reinforces the proposition that “full and fair consideration” of expert testimony requires the trial court to treat as dispositive expert testimony establishing and utilizing methods of analysis that is uncontradicted by other expert testimony. In that case, two of the defendant’s experts testified that his I.Q. was below seventy. Id. at 202-03. One of the experts testified that a raw score of of sixty-six might have been slightly below the defendant’s true level of cognitive functioning because the defendant did not appear to take the test seriously; and the other expert noted that the defendant, answering hastily, might not have thought through all of the questions. Id. at 203. And “[although both experts stated that Mr. Pruitt may not have given his best effort on the tests, neither testified that Mr. Pruitt’s I.Q. would have been higher than seventy if his effort had been greater,” and “[n]either expert testified that Mr. Pruitt’s test scores were ‘unreliable.’ ” Id. The trial court nonetheless “found that neither [test score] was the product of Mr, Pruitt’s best efforts and that his grades in school and [state achievement test] scores indicated that the ... test scores were unreliable.” Id. at 200. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed this finding, distinguishing between the experts’ speculative asides about the test administration and the considerations that actually contributed to the experts’ final conclusions: ... Although the scores in this case were called into question by the trial court, neither expert opined that Mr. Pruitt’s I.Q. was greater than seventy, whether through lack of effort or on some other basis for adjustment of the raw score. Neither expert testified that the tests had an element of unreliability in their administration. Under these circumstances, we are unwilling to uphold a finding that the tests are of no value in determining whether Mr. Pruitt has met his burden in showing that his I.Q. is seventy or below.... The evidence showed that Mr. Pruitt had I.Q. test scores below seventy. In the absence of expert testimony that his I.Q. was above seventy, we hold that the evidence preponderates against the trial court’s determination that Mr. Pruitt failed to prove that he had significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning as evidenced by a functional I.Q. of seventy or below. Id. at 203. This analysis further supports Coleman’s implication that a trial court in Tennessee cannot disregard reliable expert opinions on the issue of intellectual disability when those opinions are based on clinically sound and professionally accepted methods and there is no other expert testimony that supports an analysis leading to a contrary conclusion. It follows from the above discussion that Tennessee law does not permit the state trial court to use its independent judgment to disregard uncontroverted expert analyses, consider factors that the experts have testified are unreliable, or declare to be dispositive a factor irrelevant to the clinical definitions employed by the experts. At one point, the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to define in a careful and delineated form the term “adaptive deficits,” stating that the term should be construed in a commonsense way as “the inability of an individual to behave so as to adapt to surrounding circumstances.” State v. Smith, 893 S.W.2d 908, 918 (Tenn. 1994). But more recently, the court has turned toward reliance on expert analysis. With respect to intellectual functioning, the Coleman court stated that, for example, “[a]scertaining a person’s I.Q. is not a matter within the common knowledge of lay persons,” and concluded that “[e]xpert testimony in some form will generally be required to assist the trial court in determining whether a criminal defendant is a person with intellectual disability.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 241 (emphasis added). Adaptive deficits are similarly outside the ken of the lay judge. The Coleman court, as it did with I.Q., emphasized reliance on expert analysis: “Notwithstanding State v. Smith, Tennessee’s trial and appellate courts have repeatedly relied upon expert analysis of adaptive behavior or functioning predicated upon definitions advanced within the relevant medical and psychological community and authoritative texts such as the AAIDD Manual and the DSM-IV in determining whether the second prong has been satisfied.” Id. at 248. This construction of Tennessee law under Coleman is buttressed by the United States Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Hall v. Florida, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014), which clarified the minimum Atkins standard under the U.S. Constitution (whereas Coleman interpreted state constitutional and statutory law). In Hall, the Court reasoned that the Constitution requires the courts and legislatures to follow clinical practices in defining intellectual disability. In that case, the Court confronted directly the question of “how intellectual disability must be defined in order to implement the[] principles and the holding of Atkins.” Id. at 1993. The Court emphasized that “[sjociety relies upon medical and professional expertise to define and explain how to diagnose the mental condition at issue,” for a variety of important legal determinations not limited to the death penalty. Id. The Court held that Florida’s strict I.Q. cutoff of 70 was unconstitutional, in part because it “disregard[ed] established medical practice.” See id. at 1995. This decision supports the position of the Tennessee Supreme Court that “the courts would make these fact-intensive and complex decisions with the assistance of experts in the field.” Coleman, 341 S.W.3d at 244. In light of the methods and analyses employed by the expert witnesses, the TCCA unreasonably determined that Van Tran was not intellectually disabled. The TCCA emphasized too heavily in its analysis the facts of the crime, which are not relevant to the analysis of most of the areas of adaptive behavior, especially that of functional academics. The TCCA also incorporated by reference the analysis of the state postconviction trial court, which undertook a careful analysis within the ten-area framework. That analysis, as incorporated by the TCCA, was reasonable except with respect to the area of functional academics. The district court thus properly determined, notwithstanding AEDPA deference, that Van Tran suffers from deficits in two of the ten areas of adaptive behavior, thereby satisfying the second prong of the statutory definition of intellectual disability. Third Prong: Early Onset Because under the now-prevailing standards for adjudicating claims of intellectual disability the TCCA used an erroneous causation analysis with respect to the third prong of early onset, Van Tran is entitled to habeas relief conditioned on a new evidentiary hearing before the state trial court. In particular, the postconviction hearing given to Van Tran did not meet the retroactively applicable substantive and procedural standards set forth by the Tennessee Supreme Court in Coleman v. State, 341 S.W.3d 221 (Tenn.2011). The state postconviction court ruled that there was no onset of intellectual disability during the developmental period despite strong evidence of pre-age-eighteen intellectual and adaptive deficits. Two board-certified experts in psychology, both trained and experienced in intellectual disability, testified about Van Tran’s early developmental challenges, which stemmed from his early childhood and continued through his arrival in the United States shortly before he turned eighteen. Van Tran, 2006 WL 3327828, at *2-12. Dr. Grant discussed how Van Tran was late in important developmental milestones: he was not toilet-trained until five years of age, did not speak until the age of six, and reportedly never advanced with his Vietnamese language skills beyond those of a five-year-old child. See id. at *4-5. Dr. Grant testified that Van Tran’s most recent testing was consistent with prior achievement tests, and that his neurological impairment and intellectual deficiencies would have been stable over the course of his adult life, even despite the presence of schizophrenia in late adolescence. See id. at *6. Dr. Auble’s testimony presented a compelling enumeration of circumstances in Van Tran’s childhood that made it likely that Van Tran would have developed his neurological impairments before the age of eighteen: Dr. Auble stated that the evidence indicates that the impairments appeared during the Petitioner’s developmental period. In this regard, she stated that the Petitioner’s life history indicates a number of risk factors that would have contributed to his mental retardation. Using a table listing various potential risk factors for mental retardation provided in the Tenth Edition of the AAMR, Dr. Auble proceeded to enumerate those factors applicable to the Petitioner. First, the Petitioner’s mother had poor prenatal care. The Petitioner’s mother suffered from a fall while she was pregnant resulting in “some bleeding and some other injuries.... ” The Petitioner’s mother “smoked about a half a pack a day at the time she was pregnant with him.” The Petitioner’s mother is “probably relatively limited in intelligence.” The Petitioner did not have medical treatment while he lived in Vietnam. As a child, he had malnutrition and reportedly had seizures. The Petitioner had traumatic brain injuries. The Petitioner also lacked adequate stimulation and experienced family poverty. His living situation was essentially homeless. During his childhood, he only attended school for two years. The Petitioner suffered child abuse and neglect. The Petitioner had no consistent caretakers or friends. His mother was a single parent, and the Petitioner did not really know his father. The Petitioner did not speak until he was six years old, and, when he did speak, his speech was abnormal. Presently, the Petitioner has speech impairments in both Vietnamese and English. The Petitioner was a poor student, although he did have good attendance. “These findings indicate that there was brain dysfunction that was present in childhood as well as present now.” Dr. Auble summarized, “... he had an impaired mother. He had lack of support from his family. He had abuse, poverty, war, discrimination ..., early drug and alcohol abuse. All of this contributed to his compromised functioning during childhood.” Id. at *11. Both Drs. Grant and Auble noted that Van Tran’s early onset is corroborated by the academic difficulty he experienced during the year he spent in the Memphis school system, where he scored poorly on achievement tests and was slow to learn English.in relation to similarly situated peers. Id. at *4-6, 12. The State offered no expert testimony to rebut Van Tran’s experts’ testimony establishing that Van Tran suffered from significant intellectual and adaptive deficits from as early as his childhood in Vietnam. The state trial court nonetheless found that Van Tran had not met his burden with respect to this third prong. The court relied substantially on the absence of any test of intellectual functioning before the age of eighteen. With respect to Van Tran’s late speech development, the court declined to attribute it to early-onset intellectual disability because “there could be a multitude of reasons why, as a child, petitioner did not speak or only spoke in a limited fashion.” The court similarly found that late toilet training could have been the result of a lack of instruction rather than neurological deficit, and that his sporadic school attendance and life on the streets could have caused his poor school performance. The court also found that “it is just as likely that any deficits in intellectual functioning occurred as a result of [paranoid schizophrenia], and thus, did not develop until after the age of eighteen.” The trial court summed up: In this case there are no school records, no medical records, very little documented social history and the observations of t