The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Alabama's bid to execute Joseph Clifton Smith, a man convicted of murder in 1997, on Thursday. The decision leaves in place lower court rulings that found Smith intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.
Key Takeaways
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Alabama's bid to execute Joseph Clifton Smith, who was found intellectually disabled by lower courts. The decision leaves in place rulings that block his execution.
- Supreme Court dismisses Alabama's appeal in death penalty case
- Lower court ruled Joseph Clifton Smith is ineligible for execution due to intellectual disability
- Justices divided, with liberal justices and some conservatives forming the majority
- Conservative justices dissented, arguing the appeals court improperly analyzed the case
According to The Guardian, the Supreme Court's highly unusual move involved dismissing Alabama’s petition for review without deciding it. This effectively undid its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials regarding the method used by a lower court to determine Smith's intellectual disability.
The issue at hand was how to assess multiple IQ scores that fall above and below the cutoff for execution, which is 70 in Alabama. Smith's five IQ test scores ranged from 78 to 72. A federal judge noted that his lowest score could be as low as 69 when considering the standard error of measurement.
The liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred with the decision, while conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative justice Neil Gorsuch joined Alito’s dissent in part.
How this summary was created
This summary synthesizes reporting from 3 independent publishers using AI. All sources are cited and linked below. NewsBalance is a news aggregator and media literacy tool, not a news publisher. AI-generated content may contain errors or inaccuracies — always verify important information with the original sources.