A divided Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Alabama's bid to execute a convicted murderer who lower courts found to be intellectually disabled, leaving those rulings intact. The case involved Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, who has spent nearly half his life on death row after being convicted of beating a man to death in 1997.
Background on Intellectual Disability and Executions
The Supreme Court prohibited executing intellectually disabled individuals in a landmark 2002 ruling. In subsequent cases from 2014 and 2017, the justices held that states must consider additional evidence of disability in borderline cases due to the margin of error in IQ tests.
Smith's Case
Smith's five IQ tests yielded scores between 72 and 78, slightly above the widely accepted 70-point threshold for intellectual disability. His lawyers noted that he was placed in learning-disabled classes, dropped out after seventh grade, and at the time of the crime performed math at a kindergarten level, spelled at a third-grade level, and read at a fourth-grade level.
The Supreme Court had taken up the case to clarify how courts should handle such borderline cases, with arguments held in December. Instead of issuing a ruling, the high court dismissed the appeal, an unusual move that leaves the lower court decision in place.
Court Division
The three liberal justices, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, formed the majority to dismiss the case. The four conservative justices dissented, criticizing the federal appeals court in Atlanta for improperly analyzing the case and arguing that their colleagues should have ordered a re-examination of Smith's case.
The case is Hamm v. Smith, 24-872.
