The Verdins principles concerning impaired mental functioning apply equally to intellectual disability as to mental illness; there is no separate 'Muldrock category' to which Muldrock applies but Verdins does not. Pre-decisional exchanges between a sentencing judge and counsel may be taken into account to identify sentencing error where the exchange elucidates abbreviated sentencing remarks or where the judge exposes reasoning and announces a concluded view that is maintained in an immediately ensuing ex tempore judgment. Where an offender is intellectually disabled, the causal connection between disability and offending required by Verdins/Muldrock is less likely to be problematic because the lack of capacity to reason as an ordinary person might will in most cases substantially lessen moral culpability.
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