Condemned Texas inmate gets hearing before high court

Texas' most controversial executions

Name: Linda Carty Crime: On May 16, 2001, Carty and three co-defendants invaded the home of a 25-year-old female. The victim and her 3-day-old baby were kidnapped and two other victims were beaten, duct taped, and left in the residence. The 25-year-old female was hog-tied with duct tape, a bag was taped over her head, and she was placed in the trunk of a car. This victim died from suffocation. Execution: Currently on Death Row Controversy: Her latest appeal for a new hearing includes an affidavit from a former DEA agent who alleges misconduct from the prosecutor and police. Among other things, this agent says the prosecutor threatened to ruin his career by falsely accusing him of an affair with Carty – his one-time confidential informant – if he didn’t testify in the case against her. less Texas' most controversial executions

Name: Name: Linda Carty Crime: On May 16, 2001, Carty and three co-defendants invaded the home of a 25-year-old female. The victim and her 3-day-old baby were kidnapped and two ... more Photo: Melissa Phillip, Chronicle Photo: Melissa Phillip, Chronicle Image 1 of / 74 Caption Close Condemned Texas inmate gets hearing before high court 1 / 74 Back to Gallery

A Texas death penalty case with a literary bent is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court in November.

The justices (eight at the moment) have scheduled the case of Bobby James Moore for a hearing on Nov. 29.

Moore, whose 57th birthday was on Oct. 29, went to death row for the 1980 shotgun killing of 72-year-old James "Jim" McCarble in Houston.

READ MORE: Sentences of Jeffrey Wood, Bobby Moore add to Texas execution controversy

Moore's intellectual capacity and how Texas decides whether he's too disabled to kill are the central questions in the case.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his claim of intellectual disability in September 2015, saying Moore didn't meet Texas' "Briseno factors," an unscientific, seven-pronged test which a judge based on the character Lennie Smalls from John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

Executing the mentally disabled is unconstitutional. The catch is, each state gets to decide what constitutes mental disability.

READ MORE: Texas executions could get back on track after ruling

Moore's IQ has ranged from the 50s to the 70s in tests over the years. The case has drawn interest from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Constitution Project and the American Bar Association.

The high court will decide by late spring if the standards Texas uses are constitutional and if Moore can go to the execution chamber.

The decision will once again put Texas, a state not shy about carrying out death sentences, back in the death penalty spotlight.