Disability rights groups closely followed the case because of potential implications for disabled people outside the criminal justice system.Show Caption
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on May 21 declined to revisit the standard for when an intellectual disability prevents the death penalty, ruling they should not have taken a case about whether Alabama can execute a convicted murderer whose intellectual disability was disputed.Their dismissal − in a brief, unsigned opinion − leaves in place a lower court’s ruling that Joseph Smith, 55, has sufficient cognitive deficits to render him ineligible to be put to death for beating a man to death in 1997.In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the court ignored its obligation to provide "workable rules for capital cases.” Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas agreed.Thomas also went farther, saying the court should overrule its landmark 2002 case barring execution of individuals with an intellectual disability. That decision, he wrote, “has bred only confusion and absurdity.”In an opinion agreeing with the majority’s decision not to revisit execution standards, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the alternate approaches to assessing intelligence were not tested before the case reached the high court.“Without the benefit of an evidentiary record or decisions below trained on the specific theories now advanced by the parties, this Court rightly concludes that it should not provide more detailed guidance beyond what this Court’s cases have previously said.”Disability rights groups had been closely following the case, in part because of its potential implications beyond the criminal context.People diagnosed as intellectually disabled can qualify for a variety of government support services, including special education, health care and income support.Advocates worry that the court could move towards relying solely on IQ tests for diagnoses and not factor in other information about a person's ability to navigate daily life and the age at which the person's developmental problems became evident.Judges often hear conflicting testimonyDeath penalty cases are only a “tiny fraction of the universe of intellectual disability assessments,” according to disability rights groups.But in those cases, justices often hear competing testimony from experts about whether a death row inmate has a severe enough intellectual disability to prevent execution under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.Smith, who has been on death row for more than two decades, has tested with five different IQ scores ranging from 72 to 78.Because IQ tests have an error range, lower courts said Smith’s IQ could be at or below 70, a commonly used indicator of intellectual disability.But the state argued in Hamm v. Smith that because all five test scores are above 70, Smith can’t prove he’s disabled by a preponderance of the evidence.Trump administration backed executionThe Trump administration, which lifted a moratorium on the federal death penalty, backed Alabama’s right to execute Smith. The Justice Department argued that states have significant discretion in defining what it means to be intellectually disabled and what a defendant must do to prove they are disabled.Lawyers for Smith contended that multiple IQ scores must be assessed “holistically,” which includes reviewing testimony from experts about their validity. And when IQ scores alone are not conclusive, they told the court, defendants can offer additional evidence.Smith was physically abused as a child, struggled academically and emotionally, and was diagnosed in the seventh grade as “educable mentally retarded,” the term used at the time for a person with a mild intellectual disability. After dropping out of school, Smith was later sent to prison for burglary. He was out on work release in 1997 when he and an accomplice beat Durk Van Dam to death. Smith stole Van Dam’s boots, tools and $140 in cash, according to court records.U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Granade called the evaluation of Smith’s mental functioning a “close case” but wrote, “the evidence indicates that Smith’s intelligence and adaptive functioning has been deficient throughout his life.”The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.Mental health groups weighed inMental health organizations told the Supreme Court there’s “broad scientific and professional agreement” on how to determine intellectual functioning, which includes considering more than test scores.“Intellectual disability diagnoses based solely on IQ test scores are faulty and invalid,” the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association wrote in a brief supporting Smith.Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that people with intellectual disabilities can’t be executed, 144 people have had their death sentences vacated for that reason, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit group.
