Supreme Court sends case testing limits of death penalty for intellectually disabled back to lower court

The Supreme Court vacated a federal appeals court’s decision blocking a death row inmate’s execution because he says he’s intellectually disabled, ordering the lower court to issue a clearer ruling.  

After sitting on Alabama’s appeal of the decision for months – an unusual move for the court – the justices issued a per curiam ruling ordering the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to clarify how multiple IQ scores should be evaluated in cases like Joseph Clifton Smith’s. 

Smith, who was convicted of capital murder for the 1997 beating death of Durk Van Dam, has taken five IQ tests, four of which placed his IQ in the low-to-mid 70s.  

A person with an IQ of 70 or lower is generally considered to be intellectually disabled, and the Supreme Court previously ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” bars executions of intellectually disabled offenders, and children. 

A federal judge in 2021 vacated Smith’s death sentence after determining that the error range of his lowest test could place his actual IQ below 70.  

“This is a close case, but the evidence indicates that Smith’s intelligence and adaptive functioning has been deficient throughout his life,” Senior U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Granade wrote in her ruling. 

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judge’s ruling.  

The Supreme Court said Monday that the appeals court’s ruling allowed for two interpretations: one that gives greater weight to the lowest IQ score an offender receives, and another that takes a more holistic approach, weighing the scores together. 

“The Eleventh Circuit’s opinion is unclear on this point, and this Court’s ultimate assessment of any petition for certiorari by the State may depend on the basis for the Eleventh Circuit’s decision,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion, sending the case back for further consideration. 

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have heard the case. 

Alabama, which says Smith should be executed, asked the justices to take up the case after suggesting that the federal appeals court “bent law and logic” to bar Smith’s execution. 

“The panel below held that Smith had satisfied his preponderance burden with a single test score, a 72 (± 3) — despite all the other evidence of his higher intellectual functioning,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote in the state’s brief. “The Eleventh Circuit’s decision was not required by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution nor this Court’s precedents." 

The state asked the Supreme Court to decide whether two previous cases — one establishing that death penalty offenders with scores slightly above 70 must receive “the opportunity to present evidence of his intellectual disability” (Hall v. Florida), and the other that IQ tests fall within a range (Moore v. Texas) — should be overturned. 

In their brief opinion, the justices did not address those matters.