Conservative Justices Criticize Supreme Court Decision To Dismiss Death Penalty Case Involving IQ Standards

Four conservative Supreme Court justices are criticizing a majority decision to dismiss a death penalty case that centered on a prisoner’s IQ.The court dismissed Hamm v. Smith Thursday on procedural grounds, saying it had “improvidently granted” a hearing of the case. While the court had granted a petition to hear a case, the majority said after oral arguments that they should not have taken the case in the first place.The case involves an Alabama death row inmate, Joseph Clifton Smith, who was convicted of a 1997 murder and sentenced to death. Smith lost his appeal in 2001. But a year later, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Nine held for the first time that convicted murderers like Smith cannot be executed if they are deemed insufficiently intelligent.The court decided that sentencing a mentally disabled person to death would violate their Eighth Amendment rights, calling it “cruel and unusual punishment.” The court suggested that a criminal would need to have an IQ above 70 to be considered competent, but left it to states to set the exact standards.Smith had taken multiple IQ tests that gave him a score above 70 but the margin of error indicated his IQ could be as low as 69.A federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that Smith had shown that he was intellectually disabled and was improperly sentenced to die. Smith will remain safe from the death penalty now that the Supreme Court has dismissed the case.The case was considered significant because many capital punishment defendants have IQ scores near the 70 threshold.Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote a concurring opinion that stated the Supreme Court “is not equipped in this case to provide any meaningful guidance on how courts should assess multiple IQ scores.”Justice Samuel Alito blasted the decision in a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, and in parts, by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch.Justice Alito wrote that the court dismissed an opportunity to provide “much needed guidance” on how a court should apply a 70 IQ cutoff when a defendant has multiple test scores. “Our failure to address this recurring question has led to confusion and unsound analysis in lower courts,” Justice Alito wrote. He warned that the failure to resolve the issue will have “regrettable consequences.”“The Court shies away from its obligation to provide workable rules for capital cases,” Justice Alito went on to write.Justice Thomas wrote his own blistering dissent and suggested the court revisit Atkins, stating it has “bred only confusion and absurdity.” Justice Thomas added, “Nothing in the text or history of the Constitution supports Atkins. It should be overruled.”“We should end the hopeless enterprise that this Court today shows it cannot control. Because nothing in the text and history of the Eighth Amendment justifies Atkins, it is demonstrably erroneous,” Justice Thomas wrote, adding the decision was “egregiously wrong, unworkable, and has created no legitimate reliance interests.”

Conservative Justices Criticize Supreme Court Decision To Dismiss Death Penalty Case Involving IQ Standards

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