Months after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that advocates said could have major implications for intellectual disability and how it is defined, the justices said never mind.
The high court dismissed a case known as Hamm v. Smith on Thursday, with a majority of justices indicating that they should not have accepted it.
The question before the court was how multiple IQ scores should be factored when evaluating whether a person qualifies for a diagnosis of intellectual disability.
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The case focused on whether Joseph Clifton Smith, who was convicted of capital murder, has intellectual disability. Smith has taken five IQ tests, with scores ranging from 72 to 78. The state of Alabama contended that Smith should be eligible for execution since his IQ scores were consistently over 70, but attorneys for Smith argued that given how low his scores were, the court should consider additional evidence.
More than two decades ago, the Supreme Court determined in Atkins v. Virginia that executing people with intellectual disabilities is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the Eighth Amendment. Additional cases since then have validated that decision and reinforced that clinical standards should be used to determine who falls into this category as opposed to relying on an IQ score alone.
Several disability advocacy groups warned that a decision in the case could have wide-ranging implications and they urged the high court to retain an established clinical framework — factoring whether a person has significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning that arose before adulthood — to assess claims of intellectual disability.
“A Supreme Court decision could have potentially narrowed protections for people with intellectual disabilities against being executed and could have reflected an inappropriately strict view of intellectual disability,” said Jennifer Mathis, deputy director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “Further, a decision narrowing how intellectual disability is determined could have had ramifications beyond death penalty cases if it were used to argue for a restrictive view of intellectual disability in other contexts, such as for purposes of qualifying for services.”
The majority opinion from the Supreme Court was unsigned and did not offer any reason for dismissing the case. But, in a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that there was not sufficient evidence presented in the litigation to address how to assess multiple IQ scores.
“The court is not equipped in this case to provide any meaningful guidance on how courts should assess multiple IQ scores,” wrote Sotomayor who was joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
“By instead remaining silent, the court exacerbates the confusion that plagues our jurisprudence in this area,” Alito wrote.
Thomas also issued his own dissent in which he said that the Atkins decision protecting people with intellectual disability from execution should be overturned.
As it stands, however, the Atkins decision remains in effect.
“It is settled law that executing people with intellectual disability is unconstitutional,” said Shira Wakschlag, senior executive officer for legal advocacy and general counsel at The Arc. “Alabama asked the court to erase that precedent and focus exclusively on IQ scores in evaluating whether a person has an intellectual disability, which could have upended decades of precedent, ignored science, and put people with intellectual disability at risk of unlawful execution. With the court’s decision to dismiss the case today, Atkins precedent stands: an intellectual disability diagnosis requires a holistic and comprehensive evaluation conducted by qualified individuals.”
