Thomas and Gorsuch signal willingness to rethink SCOTUS rulings about executing low-IQ inmates

Left: Justice Clarence Thomas (Photo by Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images); Center: Joseph Clifton Smith (Alabama Dept. of Corrections). Right: Justice Neil Gorsuch (Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images).

Left: Justice Clarence Thomas (Photo by Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images); Center: Joseph Clifton Smith (Alabama Dept. of Corrections). Right: Justice Neil Gorsuch (Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images).

Over the objection of Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order Monday that put on hold the execution of an intellectually disabled Alabama man convicted of murder.

Joseph Clifton Smith is on death row for the 1997 murder of Durk Van Dam. According to evidence in the case, Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and saw in order to steal his boots, some tools and $140.

In 2002, several years after Smith’s conviction, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in the case of Atkins v. Virginia that executing an intellectually disabled person is cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Thomas, who dissented in Atkins along with then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, is the only justice who participated in the case that is still on the bench.

Following the Atkins ruling, the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama vacated Smith’s death sentence after concluding that he is intellectually disabled. Smith has undergone multiple rounds of IQ testing with results ranging from 72 to 78. The district court found that adjusting for testing error, Smith’s actual IQ could be as low as 69 — within the accepted range of intellectual disability. Senior U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Granade said that the case had been a close one that came down to expert opinions, but ruled that the combination of low IQ scores and an examination of Smith’s adaptive functioning indicates that he has been deficient throughout his life.

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