Supreme Court dismisses Alabama's bid to execute inmate with borderline intellectual disability

The Supreme Court dismissed Alabama’s appeal seeking permission to execute Joseph Clifton Smith, a man convicted of murder in 1997. Lower courts found Smith intellectually disabled, and the dismissal left those rulings in place. The Court previously prohibited execution of intellectually disabled people in 2002. In later cases, the Court required states to consider other evidence of disability in borderline situations because IQ tests have a margin of error. Smith’s multiple IQ scores ranged from 72 to 78, and he had been placed in learning-disabled classes, left school after seventh grade, and performed at very low academic levels at the time of the crime. The Court dismissed the appeal without issuing a decision, with a majority of justices supporting the dismissal and dissenting justices criticizing the lower-court analysis.

"A divided Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Alabama's bid to be allowed to execute a convicted murder who was found by lower courts to be intellectually disabled. The court's action leaves in place lower court rulings in favor of Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, who has been on death row roughly half his life after his conviction for beating a man to death in 1997. The Supreme Court prohibited execution of intellectually disabled people in a landmark ruling in 2002."

"The justices, in cases in 2014 and 2017, held that states should consider other evidence of disability in borderline cases because of the margin of error in IQ tests. The issue in Smith's case is what happens when a person has multiple IQ scores that are slightly above 70, which has been widely accepted as a marker of intellectual disability. Smith's five IQ tests produced scores ranging from 72 to 78."

"Smith had been placed in learning-disabled classes and dropped out of school after seventh grade, his lawyers said. At the time of the crime, he performed math at a kindergarten level, spelled at a third-grade level and read at a fourth-grade level. The justices had taken up the case to consider how courts should handle such borderline cases of intellectual disability."

"Rather than issue a decision, though, the high court dismissed the appeal, an unusuaI action that leaves the last lower-court ruling in place. The three liberal justices along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett formed the majority to dismiss the case. The other four conservative justices dissented, faulting the federal appeals court in Atlanta for improperly analyzing the case and complaining that their colleagues should have ordered the appeals court to re-examine Smith's case."

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