US EditionSupreme Court hears Alabama's appeal to execute a man found to be intellectually disabled
Alabama seeks Supreme Court guidance on evaluating multiple IQ tests to determine intellectual disability for death penalty eligibility, with about 10% of death row claims citing such disabilities.
- On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Hamm v. Smith, testing how states decide if a death‑penalty candidate is intellectually disabled, with oral argument lasting about two hours in Washington, D.C.
- After federal courts found Smith intellectually disabled, a federal judge in south Alabama and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals twice ruled he is ineligible for execution, prompting Alabama to appeal.
- The state argued that test margins of error mean Joseph Clifton Smith's scores of 72 to 78 could fall below Alabama law's 70 IQ cutoff.
- A ruling could reshape Eighth Amendment protections by changing how 27 states that allow the death penalty evaluate intellectual disability, with a U.S. Supreme Court decision expected by next summer.
- Multiple justices repeatedly said they were `confused` about Alabama's shifting arguments during Wednesday's questioning, while the Trump administration filed in support of Alabama as conservative justices consider narrower Eighth Amendment approaches.
112 Articles
112 Articles
Hamm v Smith: Alabama Is Asking the Supreme Court For Some Leeway On “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”
When Joseph Clifton Smith, an Alabama man who was convicted of murder in 1998, was in third grade, he needed help reading at a first-grade level. His teachers ordered further testing, which yielded an IQ score of 75, indicating that he was “functioning in the Borderline range of measured intelligence.” After more testing the following year, Smith was placed in a learning-disability class. When he reached seventh grade, his school moved him into …
Justices Thomas & Alito Lean Toward Alabama in Supreme Court Death Penalty Case
The U.S. Supreme Court just waded into a legal quagmire that could decide whether a death row inmate in Alabama gets a pass based on shaky intellectual disability claims. The post Justices Thomas & Alito Lean Toward Alabama in Supreme Court Death Penalty Case appeared first on Slay News.
The nine judges wondered on Wednesday, 10 December, how to better understand the possible cognitive disability of death row inmates. If there is a general rule, each state currently determines its own criteria for determining the threshold of this disability.
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