Supreme Court Orders New Look at IQ Scores in Death Resentencing

The US Supreme Court ordered a federal appeals court to take another look at how it decided an Alabama man on death row was intellectually disabled and shouldn’t be put to death after reviewing multiple IQ scores.

In an order Monday, the court said it can’t yet assess Alabama’s appeal of the Eleventh Circuit’s decision to toss out the death sentence Joseph Clifton Smith received for beating a man to death with a hammer during a 1997 robbery.

US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled Smith had proven his intellectual disability with an IQ score of 72 because ...