By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court threw out on Monday a judicial decision that had spared a man convicted of murder in Alabama from execution because he was found to be intellectually disabled. 

The justices concluded that the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals needs clarify its ruling that Joseph Clifton Smith’s death sentence for a 1997 murder must be set aside in light of the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision that executing an intellectually disabled person is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of a man named Durk Van Dam in Alabama’s Mobile County. Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and saw in order to steal his boots, some tools and $140, according to evidence in the case. The victim’s body was found in his mud-bound Ford Ranger truck in an isolated, wooded area.

The Supreme Court’s 2002 precedent in a case called Atkins v. Virginia barred executing intellectually disabled people.  

Like many states, conservative-leaning Alabama considers evidence of intelligence quotient (IQ) test scores of 70 or below as part of the standard for determining intellectual disability. Supreme Court rulings in 2014 and 2017 allowed courts to consider IQ score ranges that are close to 70 along with other evidence of intellectual disability, such as testimony of “adaptive deficits.”

Smith had five IQ test scores, the lowest of which was 72. A federal judge noted that Smith’s score could be as low as 69, given the standard of error of plus or minus three points. The judge then found that Smith had significant deficits from an early age in social and interpersonal skills, independent living and academics. 

The 11th Circuit upheld the judge’s conclusions in 2023, setting aside Smith’s death sentence. 

“Smith is not intellectually disabled,” Alabama told the Supreme Court in its appeal, contending that the 11th Circuit had “bent law and logic” by focusing too heavily on the Smith’s lowest IQ score to find he was intellectually disabled. 

The justices brief and unsigned opinion on Monday said that the 11th Circuit’s evaluation of Smith’s IQ scores can be read two ways, and requires clarification before they review the state’s appeal in the dispute.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken up and scheduled arguments in Alabama’s appeal.

The Supreme Court spent an unusually long time considering whether to take up Alabama’s appeal, which was filed in August 2023. 

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

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