U.S. Supreme Court dismisses disability death penalty case

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case on Thursday regarding whether a criminal defendant can use multiple IQ scores to avoid the death penalty.

The case, Hamm v. Smith, focused on Joseph Smith, a man convicted of first-degree murder in 1998. In his trial, he used multiple low IQ scored to prove that he was intellectually disabled, which prevented him from recieving the death penalty.

“The Court is not equipped in this case to provide any meaningful guidance on how courts should assess multiple IQ scores,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her concurring opinion.

Sotomayor said justices on the high court did not have a substantial evidentary record to conclude whether multiple IQ scores can serve as permissible evidence in a criminal trial. In previous cases, the high court has ruled that intellectually disabled individuals cannot be executed.

Alabama, the state prosecuting Smith, sought to propose a rule that required multiple IQ scores to be taken into account in order to prove intellectual disability. Sotomayor expressed concern about weighing in on the rule.

“This Court is therefore right to exercise caution and decline to adopt any such rules now,” Sotomayor wrote.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented to the court’s decision to dismiss the case. Both justices said the high court needed to provide guidance for lower courts in how intellectual disabilities are determined, especially since the death penalty is on the line.

“The Court shies away from its obligation to provide workable rules for capital cases,” Alito wrote. “In doing so, the Court disserves its own deathpenalty jurisprudence, States’ criminal-justice systems, lower courts, and victims of horrific murders.”

With a dismissal from the Supreme Court, Alabama will hold its rule that multiple IQ scores can be used to determine intellectual disabilities. Other states across the country use various ways to reach the same conclusion.