Supreme Court to hear case on IQ tests and death penalty next term

Washington Post

07-06-2025

The Supreme Court will hear a case next term centered on the role of multiple IQ scores in determining an Alabama murderer's eligibility for the death penalty, according to a list issued by the court late Friday.
In Hamm v. Smith, the state of Alabama is arguing that Joseph Smith — who was sentenced to death for a murder in 1997 — should be executed because he has not proved that his IQ is 70 or below, as required by state law.
However, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama vacated Smith's death sentence after ruling he is intellectually disabled because the score on one of his IQ tests could fall below 70 when accounting for margin of error. Smith had obtained five IQ scores that ranged from 72 to 78.
The Supreme Court justices agreed to hear Hamm v. Smith to determine a limited question: 'Whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores in assessing an Atkins claim,' referring to the 2002 landmark decision Atkins v. Virginia, which ruled that executing those with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In November, the Supreme Court issued a per curiam decision to remand the case for further consideration. In it, the justices said that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit — which had affirmed the lower court's decision to vacate Smith's death sentence — had been unclear in why it had issued that decision.
In February, the state of Alabama again asked the Supreme Court to intervene, saying the Eleventh Circuit 'watered down the most objective prong of the test, overrode Alabama's definition of intellectual disability, and shattered Atkins's promise to leave meaningful discretion to the States.'
'This case was not close: Smith scored 75, 74, 72, 78, and 74 on five full-scale IQ tests. There is no way to conclude from these five numbers that Smith's true IQ is likely to be 70 or below,' the state of Alabama argued, also adding that evaluating multiple IQ scores is 'complicated' and that the Supreme Court has not specified how to do it.
'Smith could take hundreds of IQ tests, score 75 on all of them, yet his IQ still 'could be' 70, according to the panel [the Eleventh Circuit], because every test could have erred by 5 points. The panel failed to appreciate that multiple tests together can provide a more accurate estimate than each test alone,' the state argued.
The Supreme Court's next term is scheduled to begin in October. The list of new cases was not expected until Monday morning, but email notifications about the list were inadvertently sent Friday evening because of a technical glitch, so the court chose to release the list of cases earlier than scheduled.
In a statement that accompanied the early release, court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said the notifications were sent prematurely because of an 'apparent software malfunction.'
Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.