By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Wednesday to hear a bid by Alabama officials to pursue the execution of an inmate convicted of a 1997 murder who a lower court found to be intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty.
President Donald Trump’s administration has backed the Republican-led state’s appeal of the lower court’s determination that Joseph Clifton Smith is intellectually disabled based on intelligence quotient, or IQ, test scores and expert testimony.
Smith, now 55, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of a man named Durk Van Dam in Alabama’s Mobile County. Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and saw in order to steal his boots, tools and $140, according to evidence in the case. The victim’s body was found in his mud-bound Ford Ranger truck in an isolated, wooded area.
Under a 2002 Supreme Court precedent, executing an intellectually disabled person violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The current case centers on whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores in assessing a death row inmate’s intellectual disability.
Alabama has argued that the lower courts in the case applied the wrong legal standard in establishing Smith’s intellectual disability.
Like many states, Alabama considers evidence of IQ test scores of 70 or below as part of the standard for determining intellectual disability. Supreme Court rulings in 2014 and 2017 allowed courts to consider IQ score ranges that are close to 70 along with other evidence of intellectual disability, such as testimony of “adaptive deficits.”
Smith had five IQ test scores, ranging from a high of 78 to a low of 72. A federal judge noted that Smith’s lowest score could in fact be as low as 69, given the standard of error of roughly plus or minus three IQ points. The judge then found that Smith had significant deficits from an early age in social and interpersonal skills, independent living and academics.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s conclusions in 2023, setting aside Smith’s death sentence. This prompted Alabama officials to file the first of two appeals to the Supreme Court in the case.
The justices last year threw out the 11th Circuit’s decision, saying that the lower court’s evaluation of Smith’s IQ scores can be read two ways, and requires clarification.
The 11th Circuit responded with an opinion clarifying that its evaluation was based on “a holistic approach to multiple IQ scores” that also considered additional relevant evidence, including expert testimony. This prompted the current appeal by Alabama officials to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
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