The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hamm v. Joseph Clifton Smith. Smith, who was diagnosed as having intellectually disabilities, was sentenced to death for a 1997 murder, which he contends is unconstitutional.
Joseph Clifton Smith grew up in an abusive and unstable household in Alabama. His father was a violent alcoholic who beat his children with belts and water hoses. After his parents divorced, Smith’s stepfather also regularly beat them as much as he got drunk—daily. Smith’s mother sometimes took the children to a neighbor’s house to escape the abuse from her husband.
Smith struggled academically from an early age, described by teachers as a “slow learner.” By third grade, at age eight, he was still functioning at a first-grade level and scored a 75 on an IQ test—placing him in the borderline range of intelligence. Additional testing led to his placement in special education classes, including an “emotionally conflicted” classroom due to frequent behavioral issues.
Smith’s learning difficulties continued through junior high. He was later deemed eligible for a program for students with mild intellectual disabilities but eventually failed two grades and dropped out of school.
Smith spent much of the next 15 years in and out of prison. In 1997, Smith was paroled; two days after his release from prison, Smith was arrested and charged with capital murder even though Smith gave investigators conflicting accounts of his involvement in the crime.
Was he merely an observer or did he participate in a robbery that went too far?
A psychologist administered yet another IQ test to Smith, who scored a 72. Given the margin of error in such evaluations, that meant Smith’s true IQ could be as high as 75 or as low as 69. A score of 69, the doctor noted, is considered clearly intellectually disabled.
Now, that one- to two-point difference in Smith’s score is the subject of a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and determine whether the state of Alabama can execute Smith. Under the Constitution and a precedent set in 2002 known as Atkins v. Virginia, executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Now, a coalition of disability advocacy organizations are rallying around Smith’s case. Recently, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law the latest group to sign on to an amicus brief along with the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, The Arc and National Disability Rights Network urging the Supreme Court to uphold Atkins and protect people with intellectual disabilities from execution “based on a holistic assessment of intellectual disability rather than a narrow inquiry about IQ.”
Shira Wakschlag, a top lawyer for The Arc of the United States, said the unconstitutionality of executing people with intellectual disability is “settled law” under Atkins.
“People with intellectual disability have a specific condition, not a rote IQ number,” Wakschlag said in a September statement. “Alabama is asking the court to erase that precedent and focus exclusively on IQ scores in evaluating whether a person has an intellectual disability. The state’s request would upend decades of precedent, ignore science, and put people with intellectual disability at risk of unlawful execution. An intellectual disability diagnosis requires a holistic and comprehensive evaluation conducted by qualified individuals. Lives are on the line.”
Several lower courts, including 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, struck down Smith’s sentence, but Alabama appealed to the nation’s highest court. According to the nonprofit newsroom Alabama Reflector, the state argued in one appeal that using Smith’s lower IQ score was an error that distorts Atkins, “by placing a thumb on the scale in favor of capital offenders” and “trample[s] over the State’s discretion to define intellectual disability and set burdens of proof in capital punishment cases.”
In announcing the organization’s joining of the amicus brief, the Bazelon Center posted a statement saying, “People with intellectual disabilities face heightened risks of being targeted, misjudged, and wrongfully convicted, and science-based standards help reduce those risks. Intellectual disabilities require holistic, clinician-led assessment; they cannot be reduced to test scores alone. And the Constitution draws a definitive line: the death penalty is off the table for people with intellectual disabilities.”
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case this term, which began on Oct. 6. Decisions are typically handed down starting in the spring and concluded by mid-June of the following year.
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