The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Alabama's appeal to execute a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 hammer murder, declining to set rules for how courts should weigh multiple IQ scores in capital cases. The unsigned opinion in the case of Joseph Clifton Smith left conservative dissenters warning that the court had abandoned its duty to provide clear guidance on intellectual disability and the death penalty.
Smith, now 55, has spent roughly half his life on death row after his conviction in the beating death of Durk Van Dam during a robbery. His five IQ tests produced scores ranging from 72 to 78, all above the threshold of 70 that Alabama law and federal precedent generally treat as a marker of intellectual disability. Yet lower courts found him intellectually disabled based on the margin of error in his lowest score and evidence of severe academic deficits.
The court's decision to dismiss the case as "improvidently granted", legal shorthand for acknowledging it should never have taken the case, leaves those lower rulings intact. It also leaves unresolved a question that The Hill reported Alabama, twenty other states, and the Trump administration had urged the justices to answer: when a defendant's IQ scores all land above 70, how much weight should courts give to other evidence of disability?
The dismissal carried a 5-4 majority that crossed ideological lines. Newsmax reported that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court's three liberal justices to form the majority, a combination that has drawn attention to shifting dynamics on the bench in capital punishment cases.
That alignment is worth watching. Two justices appointed by President Trump sided with the liberal wing to avoid ruling on a question that could have narrowed protections for death row inmates claiming intellectual disability. The recent pattern of Kavanaugh and Barrett joining liberal justices on death penalty appeals raises questions about where the court's center of gravity sits on capital cases.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing a concurrence joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued the court "should not and cannot" use Smith's case to address how courts analyze multiple IQ scores. She contended the issue had been "neither meaningfully raised nor passed upon" in the lower courts and that no state legislatures or courts had adopted the rule Alabama proposed.
"There is no reason for this Court to leapfrog the experts, state courts and federal lower courts to provide conclusive guidance at this level of detail in the first instance. Thus, for the reasons given above, the Court is correct today to dismiss this case as improvidently granted."
Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissent joined in full by Justice Clarence Thomas and in part by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch. Alito did not mince words about what he saw as a failure of judicial responsibility.
"Instead, the Court shies away from its obligation to provide workable rules for capital cases. In doing so, the Court disservices its own death penalty jurisprudence, States' criminal-justice systems, lower courts and victims of horrific murders."
That last phrase, "victims of horrific murders", lands with particular force in a case where the underlying crime involved a man beaten to death with a hammer during a robbery. Durk Van Dam has been dead for nearly three decades. His killer's legal proceedings have now stretched across five IQ tests, multiple court rulings, and two trips to the Supreme Court without a final resolution on the central legal question.
Thomas wrote separately to argue the dismissal "rewards" Smith's efforts to convince courts he is not intelligent enough to face execution. Thomas suggested Smith is, in fact, not insufficiently intelligent to be executed, a pointed assessment that cuts against the lower courts' findings.
The procedural history of Smith's case illustrates how death penalty litigation can stretch across decades, frustrating the finality that the justice system promises victims' families. Smith was convicted in 1997. A lower court judge vacated his death sentence in 2021, determining that the error range of his lowest IQ test score could place his actual IQ below 70. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling in 2023.
The Supreme Court then punted, directing the lower court to clarify its reasoning. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Smith's death sentence again in 2024. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Alabama's appeal last year, and oral arguments took place in December.
During those arguments, Robert Overing, Alabama's principal deputy solicitor general, told the justices plainly: "The lower court changed the rules." Harry Graver, a Trump administration counsel, argued on behalf of the government in support of Alabama's position, though the administration took a slightly different approach on the question of how much discretion states should have in defining intellectual disability.
The fact that AP News reported Alabama and twenty other states plus the Trump administration all urged the court to act makes the dismissal all the more notable. The justices had a broad coalition asking them to provide clarity. They declined.
Smith's IQ scores, 72 to 78 across five tests, all exceeded the 70 threshold. Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ score at or below 70, combined with significant deficits in adaptive behavior that emerged during developmental years. By that standard, Smith's raw scores do not qualify him.
But the lower courts factored in the standard error of measurement built into IQ testing, reasoning that Smith's lowest score could, within the margin of error, dip below 70. They also considered evidence of his adaptive functioning. Newsmax reported that at the time of his crime, Smith performed at a kindergarten level in math, a third-grade level in spelling, and a fourth-grade level in reading.
The question Alabama wanted answered is straightforward: when every score sits above the line, should courts be able to use statistical margins and supplementary evidence to push a defendant below it? The Supreme Court's 2002 landmark ruling barred execution of intellectually disabled people. Breitbart noted this case could have been the first in which the court cut back on that precedent, potentially making it harder for defendants to prove intellectual disability in borderline cases.
That did not happen. And the lack of guidance means lower courts across the country will continue operating without a uniform standard, producing inconsistent results depending on jurisdiction.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment," and the court has interpreted that to bar execution of both children and people with intellectual disabilities. Prior rulings established that defendants with IQ scores slightly above 70 must receive the opportunity to present evidence of disability and that IQ tests produce results within a range, not a single fixed number.
Those principles sound reasonable in the abstract. In practice, they have created a gray zone that defense attorneys can exploit in case after case. When every IQ score exceeds the threshold but the margin of error theoretically permits a lower number, the door stays open. The internal dynamics of how the Supreme Court handles its docket have come under increasing scrutiny, and decisions like this one, where the court agrees to hear a case, holds oral arguments, and then walks away without ruling, do little to inspire confidence in the institution's willingness to tackle hard questions.
Alito's dissent frames the cost clearly. Without workable rules, states face prolonged litigation. Lower courts improvise. Victims' families wait. And prosecutors in states like Alabama, along with the other jurisdictions still actively pursuing capital punishment, are left guessing at the boundaries.
Justice Alito warned during oral arguments, as AP News reported, that ruling for Smith would lead to "messy court fights for other death row inmates where everything is up for grabs in every case." By declining to rule at all, the court may have guaranteed exactly that outcome.
Joseph Clifton Smith beat a man to death with a hammer nearly thirty years ago. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die under the laws of Alabama. Four of his five IQ tests scored above the state's threshold for intellectual disability. The fifth was also above it, but a judge decided the margin of error might theoretically push it below.
On that basis, his death sentence was vacated. Two federal courts affirmed. The Supreme Court took the case, heard arguments, and then decided it never should have bothered.
Durk Van Dam's family got no clarity. Alabama got no rule to follow. Lower courts got no guidance. The only person who gained something was the man who swung the hammer.
When the highest court in the land takes up a case and then walks away, it is not restraint. It is avoidance. And avoidance has consequences, for the rule of law, for the states trying to enforce it, and for the victims whose cases never quite reach a final answer.
