Smarter than he looks?

The state's first rebuttal witness Harry McClaren, a forensic psychologist, is creating a far different picture of John Couey than jurors heard yesterday.

Instead of describing Couey as a childlike being, marred by a lack of smarts and abusive upbringing, McClaren has focused on his ability to function as an autonomous adult. He assessed Couey in February of 2005.

After interviewing a number of people who knew Couey -- relatives, former employers, corrections officers -- McClaren determined that Couey's adaptive functioning does not meet the threshold for mental retardation.

This is an important point, in terms of the retardation defense.

To prove retardation under the law, and thus evade the death penalty, attorneys must show that Couey has both a low IQ and insufficient adaptive functioning. In layman's terms, the latter means "a person's ability to get along in the world," Prosecutor Ric Ridgway clarified.

McClaren said former employers told him Couey was an effective construction worker, could move and think quickly on the job and even negotiated his salary. A corrections officer told him Couey checked out books at the jail's law library and he saw him reading them out loud to himself.

-- Elena Lesley