Justices Dismiss Death Penalty IQ Test Case Without Decision

The US Supreme Court won’t rule for now on how state courts should analyze the results of multiple IQ tests when determining if death row inmates have an intellectual disability that would bar their execution.

The justices on Thursday dismissed as improvidently granted a case out of Alabama involving Joseph Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to death for a 1997 robbery-murder.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit halted Smith’s execution, finding that he met the intellectual disability standard set by the Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia based on the results of multiple IQ tests administered ...