Despite a call from several states to review the constitutionality of evolving capital punishment standards, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up Alabama’s fight to reinstate a death sentence for a mentally disabled man. The court instead vacated the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion affirming a lower court’s decision to lift the sentence, finding the judges' ruling unclear as to how they analyzed the man’s various IQ scores, which ranged between 72 and 78. The justices remanded the case to the appellate court to clarify the analysis and suggested they would review the case after a new decision, Courthouse News Service reports. The high court explained that the 11th Circuit’s analysis could be read two ways. The appellate court seemingly gave Joseph Clifton Smith’s lowest score, 72, “conclusive weight” toward affirming the lifted death sentence, because it fell within the margin of error for a score below 70, the indicator of mental disability in the scoring method. The 11th Circuit also approved the lower court’s finding that Smith’s lowest score was not an outlier when considered with his higher scores, suggesting a holistic approach to the multiple scores.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch suggested the high court take up the case and set oral arguments. The Alabama Department of Corrections asked the high court to review a set of precedents that prohibit the execution of mentally disabled people. Over two decades ago, the court ruled that carrying out death sentences on people with intellectual disabilities violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. The justices left the states to set the bar for who could be considered intellectually disabled. In two subsequent cases, the court created a road map for states to follow when making these decisions. Edmund LaCour Jr., Alabama's solicitor general, had told the justices that "the court’s dubious methodology subjects states not to the fixed and objective strictures of the Constitution’s original meaning but to the ‘judgment’ of other states about ‘the dignity of man’ and to changing ‘clinical definitions’ offered by professional organizations,." Smith was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Durk Van Dam, who Smith beat to death with a hammer to steal $140, his boots and tools.
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