U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Alabama Appeal in Joseph Smith Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal from Alabama officials seeking to execute a death row inmate whom lower courts have found to be intellectually disabled. The unsigned order leaves in place rulings that bar the state from putting Joseph Clifton Smith to death.

Smith, now 55, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Durk Van Dam in Mobile County, Alabama. Evidence presented at trial showed Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and a saw to steal his boots, tools, and $140.

The legal dispute centered on whether Smith is ineligible for execution due to intellectual disability. In a 2002 landmark ruling, the Supreme Court held that executing intellectually disabled individuals violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Subsequent rulings in 2014 and 2017 clarified that states must consider additional evidence beyond a strict IQ score cutoff, acknowledging a margin of error in testing.

Smith's case presented a borderline scenario. He underwent five IQ tests yielding scores ranging from 72 to 78. While these figures are above 70, a threshold often referenced in such determinations, a federal judge and the...