OPINION

This is a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus in a capital case, in which the applicant claims that he cannot be subjected to the death penalty, consistent with Atkins v. Virginia,1 because he is mentally retarded. This Court found that the application satisfied the requirements for a subsequent writ under Article 11.071, Section 5, and remanded the cause to the convicting court for further proceedings. *817The convicting court held an evidentiary hearing in late August of 2005, after which it made recommended findings of fact and conclusions of law, recommending that the applicant’s sentence be reduced to life imprisonment because he is mentally retarded and therefore cannot be executed consonant with the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. After our own independent review of the record, we will follow that recommendation.

THE LEGAL STANDARD

For purposes of Atkins review in Texas, we have defined mental retardation to be “1) significant sub-average general intellectual functioning, usually evidence by an IQ score below 70, that is accompanied by, 2) related limitations in adaptive functioning, 3) the onset of which occurs prior to the age of 18.”2 In post-conviction habeas corpus review, this Court is the ultimate fact finder.3 Nevertheless, the convicting court is the “original factfin-der” in post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings,4 and as a matter of course this Court pays great deference to the convicting court’s recommended findings of fact and conclusions of law, as long as they are supported by the record, particularly in those matters with regard to the weight and credibility of the witnesses and, in the case of expert witnesses, the level and scope of their expertise.5

In cases in which the evidence could support both a finding that the habe-as applicant has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that he is mentally retarded and a finding that he has failed to show he is mentally retarded to that level of confidence, we have typically deferred to the recommendation of the convicting court, whatever that might be.6 In the instant case, the convicting court has considered records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and affidavits from various experts and lay people and has conducted an evidentiary hearing. It has recommended, based upon conflicting evidence, that we find that the applicant has demonstrated to the requisite level of confidence that he is mentally retarded.7 We see no compelling reason to reject that recommendation.

*818APPLICATION OF LAW TO FACTS

Significant Sub-Average Intellectual Functioning

Born in 1966, the applicant has had his IQ tested via various psychometric instruments at least six times between 1989 and 2003. Each time he scored in the range of mild mental retardation. During his first incarceration in TDCJ, beginning in 1989, his full-scale score on the Wech-sler Adult Intelligence Scales-Revised was a 69. Other standardized tests conducted by the prison system also placed the applicant in the mild mental-retardation range. Fourteen years later, on November 1, 2003, the applicant’s own expert, Dr. Anto-lin Llórente, obtained an identical full-scale score when he administered the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence to the applicant. Ten days later, on November 11, 2003, the State’s expert, Dr. David Edgerton, administered the Wech-sler Adult Intelligence Seale-IV to the ap-plieant, obtaining a full-scale score of 56. Edgerton testified that the discrepancy in the results he obtained caused him some concern about the possibility of malingering on the applicant’s part, but admitted that he had administered none of the available instruments that are designed to help detect malingering.8 He conceded that the evidence that the applicant had presented would support a finding that the applicant’s IQ scores fall within the range of mild mental retardation.9 Thus, the record amply supports the convicting court’s finding that the applicant has demonstrated to the requisite level of confidence that he has significant sub-average intellectual functioning and therefore satisfies the first criteria for mental retardation.

Adaptive Deficits/Age of Onset

Unlike the question of the applicant’s IQ, the question whether he manifests adaptive deficits was hotly contested. The applicant relied primarily upon an affi*819davit and report from Dr. Richard Gar-nett. Dr. Garnett conducted a three-hour clinical interview with the applicant, from which he concluded that the applicant’s thinking is highly concrete, and his ability to reason abstractly, impaired.10 After reviewing, inter alia, 1) evidence from the punishment phase of the applicant’s trial, 2) affidavits from family members who grew up with and around the applicant in the Philippines, 3) affidavits of various benefactors who helped him once he came to the United States, 4) social-security records outlining his sketchy employment record, and 5) prison records, Garnett opined that the applicant “has exhibited a life-long pattern of substandard functioning in all areas of daily living: conceptual, social, and practical.” He concluded that the applicant “has indeed demonstrated significant deficits in adaptive functioning.”

The record supports this conclusion with anecdotal and documentary evidence from various sources that the applicant, inter alia:

• was born a “blue baby” with the umbilical cord around his neck

• was developmentally slow as a child, walking for the first time at the age of two and talking for the first time at four

• suffered a head injury and was struck by lightening as a child

• did extremely poorly in school in the Philippines

• displayed grossly deficient personal hygiene and table manners

• could not be taught, once he came to the United States, how to perform relatively simple tasks such as operating a washing machine, mowing the lawn, or driving a car, and never obtained a driver’s license

• could not find his way around the city, could not cook for himself, ate spoiled food, did not understand the value of, or how to manage, money, and apparently did not know how to pay bills

• could not find a job on his own, and could not keep even menial jobs that someone else helped him find for more than five weeks at a time, earning less than $1500 over the course of two years

• once he no longer lived with a benefactor, could not live on his own for more than a few weeks at a time without getting into serious trouble and going to prison.

Even the State’s expert, Dr. Edgerton, acknowledged at the evidentiary hearing that this record, if rehable, would support a diagnosis of mental retardation.11

*820The State took the position at the evi-dentiary hearing that the affidavits supporting Dr. Garnett’s conclusion with respect to adaptive deficits were not reliable. Edgerton pointed to internal inconsistencies within individual affidavits as well as inconsistencies among the various affidavits and concluded that there was a significant danger of exaggeration from the informants. He noted that, although the applicant’s 1989 IQ tests had prompted the prison system to evaluate him for special services, TDCJ had ultimately concluded, on the basis of further evaluation, including administration of the Vineland test for adaptive deficits, that he could function adequately in the regular prison population.12 Edgerton believed that the data more closely supported a diagnosis of conduct disorder and concluded that the applicant did not manifest a sufficient level or breadth of adaptive dysfunction to ultimately justify a diagnosis of mild mental retardation.

The applicant countered with evidence that the TDCJ evaluation itself was unreliable because the data underlying the Vineland score had originated with the applicant himself, rather than from knowledgeable third-party sources as is the standard protocol. It was documented that much of the information that the applicant had supplied to the TDCJ evaluators inaccurately overstated his adaptive abilities. For example, the applicant had told the evaluators that he had graduated from an apparently non-existent high school, that he had been an “A” student, that he had spent three months in the Marine Corps when in fact there is no record of any military service, and that he had been employed as a commercial truck driver when in fact he had never had a driver’s license. Moreover, the applicant established that, even if he could be diagnosed with conduct disorder (which Edg-erton did not purport to do, testifying only that he thought it probable that a full work-up would result in that diagnosis), such a diagnosis would not exclude a concurrent diagnosis of mental retardation.13

In his report, Dr. Garnett also evaluated the applicant according to the non-diagnostic criteria this Court identified in Ex parte Briseno.14, The convicting court has made extensive findings with respect to these criteria. The record supports the convicting court’s findings that: 1) the applicant’s participation in the offense for which he is on death row was spontaneous, rather than planned;15 2) that his conduct *821in general is impulsive;16 3) that he is uniformly reported to be gullible and a follower rather than a leader;17 and 4) that he was unable to lie or hide facts in his own interest.18

On this state of the record, the convicting court was justified in finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the applicant has established adaptive deficits over the course of his lifetime (including during the developmental period) sufficient to show he is mildly mentally retarded.

The Media Interview

The dissenters disagree and would have us assert our prerogative as the ultimate (if not the original) finders of fact to reject the convicting court’s recommendation. They believe that a recorded interview, approximately thirty-seven minutes long, that applicant gave to an Amarillo television reporter, conclusively demon-strates that he is not mentally retarded. As with Justice Stewart’s assertion about hard-core pornography, they “know [mental retardation] when [they] see it,” and the applicant “is not that[.]”19

The convicting court did not ignore the media interview — far from it. After the evidentiary hearing was concluded, the convicting court allowed the parties to file additional affidavits from their experts in which they assessed the significance of the applicant’s performance in the recorded interview and explained how they thought it supports them respective positions with regard to whether the applicant is mentally retarded. Tellingly, however, none of the experts purported to be able to determine, based upon viewing the television interview alone, whether the applicant is mentally retarded. Indeed, we are unaware of any mental health experts who *822purport to be able to diagnose mental retardation, or the lack thereof, based solely upon viewing a videotaped interview.

The convicting court addressed the television interview at some length in its findings of fact and conclusions of law. The convicting court regarded the interview as relevant specifically in the context of one of the Briseno factors, viz: Does the applicant respond coherently, rationally, and oh point to oral or written questions or do his responses wander from subject to subject? 20 In its recommended findings of fact and conclusions of law, the convicting court judge noted with obvious trepidation the conflicting opinions of the experts with respect to the interview. He remarked that to his untrained eye the applicant’s responses did not seem “indicative of mental retardation.” But he also noted that during the course of the interview the applicant did not respond in a spontaneous way to questions, but instead “just started talking.” The interviewer asked few questions, testifying that for the most part she just let the applicant talk about whatever topics he chose. The convicting court noted the possibility that the applicant’s apparent fluidity during the interview may simply have reflected “a learned by rote understanding of his case which he [was] then able to repeat when given an opportunity” after he had spent eleven years on death row communicating with his various lawyers. Unable firmly to resolve its ambivalence with respect to this particular Briseno factor,21 the convicting court ultimately relied upon the totality of the evidence as it bore upon all of the other relevant criteria to conclude that the applicant had demonstrated adaptive deficits to the requisite level of confidence.

We believe this was the right approach. Both the American Bar Association and the State Bar of Texas recognize the important role of experts in screening defendants for mental health issues, including mental retardation.22 There is a reason that mental-health experts are important to this process; mildly mentally retarded individuals often learn to disguise their disabilities in a so-called “cloak of compe-*823tenee.”23 It is true, of course, that experts do not make the ultimate determination with respect to mental retardation; the convicting court as original fact finder makes the ultimate determination with respect to mental retardation, based upon all of the evidence and determinations of credibility.24 Nevertheless, we cannot fault the convicting court judge for entertaining a healthy scepticism of his own ability to gauge mental retardation, vel non, based upon nothing more than his intuitive assessment of the appellant’s performance during the media interview.

We, too, have viewed the media interview. To our untrained eye, it conclusively demonstrates neither that the applicant is mentally retarded, nor that he is not. Under the circumstances, the convicting court was justified in relying upon the expert assessment of Dr. Garnett, who has thirty-five years of professional experience as a diagnostician in the field of mental retardation. From his three-hour clinical interview of the applicant, in combination with the results of the IQ testing and his review of the other evidence of adaptive deficits summarized above, Garnett concluded that the applicant is mentally retarded. In his expert opinion, the thirty-seven-minute media interview corroborated that conclusion. Not surprisingly, Dr. Edgerton drew a different conclusion and thought that the media interview corroborated his own, contrary view. This means that the record would also support a reasonable jurist’s conclusion that the applicant has not established mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence. On such a state of the record, we typically defer to the recommended findings and conclusions of the convicting court — here, that the evidence preponderates in favor of a finding that the applicant is mentally retarded.

CONCLUSION

The record supports the convicting court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, and, with one caveat, we adopt them.25 Accordingly, we accept the convicting court’s conclusion that the applicant has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he falls within the range of mentally retarded offenders about whom there is a national consensus that they should not be executed. Relief is granted, *824and the applicant’s sentence is reformed to a term of life imprisonment.

filed a dissenting opinion in which KEASLER and HERYEY, JJ., joined.

Is applicant the kind of person who is “so impaired as to fall within the range of mentally retarded offenders about whom there is a national consensus” that the death penalty should not be imposed?1 He did not seem to be particularly impaired when he was interviewed by the television media. We are fortunate to have a video recording (including audio) of that interview, and I have reviewed it. On the recording, applicant speaks fluently. Both the content of his speech and its manner of delivery suggest a person of ordinary intelligence. His ability to engage in abstract thinking is reflected by his use of figures of speech2 and by his explanation of the symbolism of the tear tattoo on his face. It is impossible to fully convey in writing applicant’s demeanor and voice, but applicant does not appear on the video to be mentally retarded.

The news reporter felt that applicant had communicated his points well; she had no reservations about his mental capacity. Both of the State’s experts expressed the opinion that the recording is evidence that applicant does not have mental retardation. Indeed, Dr. Jenkins stated, “I have never seen any mentally retarded individual communicate and interact as Gregory Van Alstyne did in the recorded television interview.” The trial court itself acknowledged that “before being educated through this writ process, [applicant’s] appearance on the televised interview is not one which this court would have thought was indicative of mental retardation.”

We have previously addressed the effect a video recording can have on appellate review of a trial court’s finding of fact where the recording clearly contradicts testimony that would otherwise support the trial court’s finding. In Carmouche v. State, a law enforcement officer testified that the defendant had made gestures indicating his consent to a request to conduct a search.3 The incident had been recorded on videotape, and the recording was inconsistent with the officer’s rendition of events.4 Finding that “the videotape presents indisputable visual evidence contradicting the essential portions of [the officer’s] testimony,” we held, “In these narrow circumstances, we cannot blind ourselves to the videotape evidence simply because [the officer’s] testimony may, by itself, be read to support” the trial court’s ruling.5

Carmouche suggested that it was appropriate in the situation presented to “decline to give ‘almost total deference’ ” to the trial court’s findings because the videotape evidence did “not pivot ‘on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor.’ ”6 In a later case, we suggested that this statement made our precedent “somewhat unclear” as to whether a deferential or de *825novo standard applies to a trial court’s evaluation of videotape evidence in the traffic stop context.7 Citing Anderson v. Bessemer City,8 we clarified that the “almost total deference” standard of review applies.9 In a later case, Judge Hervey explained that Carmouche presented an uncommon scenario that can result from the application of the deferential standard of review: “Carmouche illustrates how a reviewing court can overturn a lower court’s ruling by considering all the evidence in the light most favorable to the ruling even when there is some evidence to support the ruling.”10 Under the appropriate circumstances, a video recording can be evidence of a compelling nature that requires that we discount testimony that conflicts with the recording.

Such would appear to be the case before us. Although applicant proffered low IQ scores, experts who opined that applicant was mentally retarded (despite the video), and other testimony suggesting adaptive deficits, the video recording starkly contradicts the picture painted by applicant’s evidence.

But the Court says we should not trust what we see and hear on the video recording, because we are not experts, and because people suffering from mild mental retardation can sometimes wrap themselves in a “cloak of competence.” We should also keep in mind that people who are not mentally retarded can malinger, refusing to put forth their best effort on testing and in other respects acting as if they are less intelligent than they really are. A person whose life depends on a finding of mental retardation would have an especially strong incentive to do so. Indeed, as the Court observes, one set of applicant’s test scores varies widely enough from the others to suggest possible malingering. Even more telling, however, is the habeas court’s own observations of applicant’s conduct and demeanor at the evidentiary hearing:

This court, based on personal observations, and prior to reading Dr. Jenkins’ affidavit, was struck by the divergent appearance of Mr. Van Alstyne in the television interview contrasted to his appearance in court. At the evidentiary hearing, Mr. Van Alstyne had an extremely flat affect. He did not interact with court personnel or with his counsel, showed no emotion, and basically sat zombie-like in his seat. This is not the Gregory Van Alstyne shown in the television interview tape.11

And the proceedings may be especially vulnerable to malingering, when, as in this case, very little objective information is available about the applicant’s life before age eighteen.12

It is clear that the trial court in this case carefully considered the evidence on both sides of the issue of mental retardation. The record of the hearing, and the findings of fact and conclusions of law, reflect a high degree of thoughtfulness and conscientiousness on the part of the court. And *826perhaps a factfinding court can reasonably conclude, based on the defensive evidence offered here, that applicant can in some sense be said to be mentally retarded under the AAMR guidelines. But is applicant impaired to such a degree that a national consensus exists that he should not be subject to the death penalty? It is evident from the video recording that he is not so impaired.

Moreover, substantial evidence apart from the video recording supports the State’s contention that applicant is not mentally retarded, including expert testimony and a prior determination within the prison system.13 Even giving “almost total deference to the trial court’s findings,”141 cannot conclude that the evidence is sufficient to show that applicant is impaired to the degree necessary to exempt him from execution under Atkins v. Virginia.

I would deny relief. I respectfully dissent.