Supreme Court struggles over whether Alabama can execute man found to be
intellectually disabled
[December 11, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN and KIM CHANDLER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled over how
courts should decide borderline cases of whether convicted murderers are
intellectually disabled and should be shielded from execution.
There was no clear outcome apparent after the justices heard two hours
of arguments in an appeal from Alabama, which wants to put to death a
man who lower federal courts found is intellectually disabled.
Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, has been on death row roughly half his life
after his conviction for beating a man to death in 1997.
The Supreme Court prohibited execution of intellectually disabled people
in a landmark ruling in 2002. The justices, in cases in 2014 and 2017,
held that states should consider other evidence of disability in
borderline cases because of the margin of error in IQ tests.
The issue in Smith's case is what happens when a person has multiple IQ
scores that are slightly above 70, which has been widely accepted as a
marker of intellectual disability. Smith's five IQ tests produced scores
ranging from 72 to 78. Smith had been placed in learning-disabled
classes and dropped out of school after seventh grade, his lawyers said.
At the time of the crime, he performed math at a kindergarten level,
spelled at a third-grade level and read at a fourth-grade level.
Seth Waxman, representing Smith, told the justices his client received a
“diagnosis of mental retardation” — then the commonly accepted term for
mental disability — in the seventh grade.
Alabama, 20 other states and the Trump administration all are asking the
high court, which is more conservative than it was a decade ago, to cut
back on those earlier decisions.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas
dissented in both cases, and Alito and Thomas sounded as if they would
side with Alabama.
A ruling for Smith would lead to messy court fights for other death row
inmates “where everything is up for grabs in every case,” Alito said.
Alabama lawyer Robert M. Overing said Smith's case should be an easy win
for the state because Smith never scored below 70 on any IQ test.
“There is no way that he can prove an IQ below 70,” Overing said.
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The Supreme Court facade is seen in Washington, Nov. 4, 2020. (AP
Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled that
Smith is intellectually disabled, looking beyond the test scores.
The justices had previously sent his case back to the federal
appeals court in Atlanta, where the judges affirmed that they had
taken a “holistic” approach to Smith's case, seemingly in line with
high court decisions.
But the justices said in June they would take a new look at the
case.
Waxman urged the justices to affirm the lower courts rather than
issue a decision that would effectively rely exclusively on test
scores and rule out additional evidence in cases with borderline IQ
scores.
Justice Elena Kagan said courts have to consider the additional
evidence, but “that's not to say you have to accept it."
Rights groups focused on disabilities wrote in a brief supporting
Smith that "intellectual disability diagnoses based solely on IQ
test scores are faulty and invalid.”
Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the beating death of
Durk Van Dam in Mobile County. Van Dam was found dead in his pickup
truck. Prosecutors said he had been beaten to death with a hammer
and robbed of $150, his boots and tools.
A federal judge in 2021 vacated Smith’s death sentence, though she
acknowledged “this is a close case.”
Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ of 70 or below,
along with significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior
and the onset of those issues before the age of 18.
A decision in Hamm v. Smith, 24-872, is expected by early summer.
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala.
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