Hamm v. Smith (604 U.S. 1)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided November 4, 2024 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 604 U.S. 1 · 145 S. Ct. 9
- Decided
- November 4, 2024
- Term
- October Term 2024
- Vote
- 7–2
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2024) 1 Per Curiam SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES JOHN Q. HAMM, COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS v. JOSEPH CLIFTON SMITH ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT No. 23–167. Decided November 4, 2024 PER CURIAM. Joseph Clifton Smith was sentenced to death for the mur- der of Durk Van Dam. The U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama vacated Smith’s death sen- tence after concluding that he is intellectually disabled. See Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304 (2002). Smith has ob- tained five full-scale IQ scores, ranging from 72 to 78. Smith’s claim of intellectual disability depended in part on whether his IQ is 70 or below. The District Court found that Smith’s IQ could be as low as 69 given the standard error of measurement for his lowest score of 72. The Dis- trict Court then vacated the death sentence, and the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Smith v. Commissioner, Ala. Dept. of Corrections, 67 F. 4th 1335 , 1354 (2023). Analyzing Smith’s intellectual functioning requires eval- uating his various IQ scores. In Hall v. Florida, 572 U. S. 701 , 714 (2014), this Court stated that “when a person has taken multiple tests, each separate score must be assessed” considering the standard error of measurement. The Court further noted that “the…
Excerpt of a 2,973-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.