The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to decide an Alabama death penalty case that could have changed how courts nationwide evaluate intellectual disability claims in capital punishment cases.
In a brief unsigned order, the court dismissed Hamm v. Smith as “improvidently granted,” leaving intact lower court rulings that prevent Joseph Clifton Smith’s execution.
Smith, convicted in the 1997 killing of Durk Van Dam in Alabama, has argued for years that he is intellectually disabled and therefore constitutionally ineligible for execution under the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia.
The dispute centered on Smith’s IQ scores, which ranged from 72 to 78. Smith took multiple IQ tests, and the margin of error could have placed his IQ as low as 69. Alabama argued the median scores placed him above the threshold traditionally associated with intellectual disability. Smith’s attorneys argued courts must account for the standard error of measurement and more extensive evidence of impaired functioning.
The court initially agreed to hear the case to determine “whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores” when evaluating intellectual disability claims in death penalty cases, but ultimately declined to issue a ruling on the merits.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that the court “should not and cannot use this case to address how courts must analyze multiple IQ scores under Atkins v. Virginia” because Alabama had changed its legal arguments during the litigation.
“The state now asks us to resolve questions it did not adequately preserve below,” Sotomayor wrote.
Sotomayor also argued that the lower courts properly followed existing Alabama precedent when evaluating Smith’s intellectual disability claim.
“Moreover, the district court’s holistic analysis comports with Alabama law, which has no statute or Alabama Supreme Court decision prescribing how courts must consider multiple IQ scores,” Sotomayor wrote. “Alabama appellate courts instead recognize that ‘a court should look at all relevant evidence in assessing an intellectual-disability claim and that no one piece of evidence, such as an IQ test score, is conclusive as to intellectual disability.’”
She added that the case contained “significant procedural complications” and warned the court against deciding “important questions of federal law” under those circumstances.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, sharply dissented from the dismissal, arguing the court should overrule Atkins entirely.
“As this case shows, though, Atkins has bred only confusion and absurdity. Nothing in the text or history of the Constitution supports Atkins. It should be overruled,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas argued the court’s decision to dismiss the case instead of issuing a substantive ruling would continue uncertainty for states attempting to apply the Supreme Court’s death penalty precedents.
“Today, however, the court dismisses the state’s petition as improvidently granted, without explanation. The effect of the court’s failure, twice in this case, to bring clarity to precedents that manifestly ‘lac[k] clarity’ is that Alabama will not be able to carry out its lawful sentence,” Thomas wrote.
The case drew national attention because it could have reshaped how courts evaluate defendants with borderline IQ scores in death penalty cases. In earlier rulings, including Hall v. Florida and Moore v. Texas, the Supreme Court instructed states not to rely solely on rigid numerical IQ cutoffs but also to consider clinical standards and adaptive functioning evidence.
Federal courts reviewing Smith’s case concluded that some of his scores could place him below 70 when accounting for the statistical margin of error associated with IQ testing. Judges also pointed to evidence of impaired academic performance, limited adaptive functioning and cognitive deficits dating to childhood.
Because the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, lower court rulings blocking Smith’s execution remain in place. Smith is expected to receive a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
