|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
WASHINGTON (BFMG) — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Alabama’s bid to proceed with the execution of a convicted murderer whom lower courts found to be intellectually disabled.
The decision leaves in place lower court rulings in favor of Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, who has spent about half his life on death row after being convicted of beating a man to death in 1997.
The Supreme Court barred the execution of intellectually disabled people in a landmark 2002 ruling. In later cases in 2014 and 2017, the justices said states must consider other evidence of disability in borderline cases because of the margin of error in IQ tests.
Smith’s case centered on what courts should do when a person has several IQ scores slightly above 70, a figure widely used as a marker for intellectual disability. Smith’s five IQ tests produced scores ranging from 72 to 78.
His lawyers said he was placed in learning-disabled classes, dropped out of school after seventh grade and had limited academic skills at the time of the crime. They said he performed math at a kindergarten level, spelled at a third-grade level and read at a fourth-grade level.
The court had agreed to hear the case to decide how borderline intellectual-disability claims should be handled. Arguments were heard in December.
Instead of issuing a ruling, however, the justices dismissed the appeal, an unusual move that leaves the last lower court decision in place.
The court’s three liberal justices were joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in the majority to dismiss the case.
The other four conservative justices dissented, saying the federal appeals court in Atlanta analyzed the case incorrectly and should have been told to reconsider Smith’s claims.
The case is Hamm v. Smith, 24-872.
