The Supreme Court has directed a federal appeals court to reexamine the case of Joseph Smith, a death row inmate in Alabama, who has been found to have an intellectual disability by lower courts. Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for a murder in 1997, and the crux of his case revolves around the determination of intellectual disability in relation to the death penalty.
In a recent unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court highlighted the need for clarity in the lower court's ruling on Smith's intellectual disability status. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch expressed their willingness to hear the case immediately.
Notably, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling deemed the execution of intellectually disabled inmates as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. This decision has sparked debates on how to handle defendants who fall near the threshold of intellectual disability, especially considering the margin of error in IQ testing.
Smith's IQ tests have placed his score slightly above the threshold of 70, as referenced in the 2002 ruling. However, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out the potential for testing discrepancies that could place his actual IQ below 70, prompting a reevaluation by the lower court.
After a series of assessments, the trial court concluded that Smith is intellectually disabled, a decision upheld by the appeals court last year. Smith, who confessed to the murder but provided conflicting accounts, was accused of a brutal crime involving the use of a hammer and saw to steal money and belongings from the victim.
Smith's appeal process at the Supreme Court faced an unusual delay of over a year, indicating possible disagreements among the justices. The court recently heard arguments in another death row case involving Richard Glossip from Oklahoma, who is seeking to overturn his conviction due to prosecution errors. Additionally, the case of Ruben Gutierrez, a Texas death row inmate, is also set for review by the Supreme Court.
