Top Dem Whose District Is Going Away Rips Supreme Court

Meanwhile, a divided Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Alabama’s effort to execute a convicted murderer whom lower courts determined is intellectually disabled.

The decision leaves intact lower court rulings in favor of Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, who has spent roughly half his life on death row following his conviction in the 1997 beating death of a man.

The Supreme Court barred the execution of intellectually disabled individuals in its landmark 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia.

The justices later expanded on that standard in decisions issued in 2014 and 2017, directing states to consider broader evidence of intellectual disability in close cases because IQ testing carries a recognized margin of error.