Supreme Court to hear Alabama appeal in push to execute intellectually disabled man

The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from Alabama’s Attorney General’s Office in its push to execute an intellectually disabled man, according to an order released early on Friday.

Joseph Clifton Smith, now 54, was sentenced to death for a decades-old murder — a decision that continues to be challenged in court.

In 1997, Smith beat Durk Van Dam to death with a hammer and a saw in Mobile County to steal his boots, tools and $140, Reuters reported. Van Dam’s body was found in his truck in an isolated wooded area.

Lower federal courts found Smith is intellectually disabled and can’t be executed. People who are intellectually disabled are protected from the death penalty following a Supreme Court ruling from 2002.

But this fall, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about what to do in cases when IQ scores are slightly above the widely accepted 70-point marker to determine if someone is intellectually disabled.

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When a federal appeals court ruled in May 2023 that Smith could not be executed due to his intellectual disability, it detailed how he struggled in school from an early age.

Since first grade, Smith struggled in school, and when he underwent an intellectual evaluation he received an IQ score of 75, CNN reported at the time, citing the appeals court.

In fourth grade, Smith was placed in a learning-disability class.

“After that placement, Smith developed an unpredictable temper and often fought with classmates. His behavior became so troublesome that his school placed him in an ‘emotionally conflicted classroom,”’ the appeals court wrote in its ruling.

Smith dropped out of school after failing seventh and eighth grade and then spent “much of the next 15 years in prison” for crimes of burglary and receiving stolen property, according to the ruling.

The appeals court said Smith confessed to killing Van Dam and that he “offered two conflicting versions of the crime.”

Smith first said he watched Van Dam be killed, and then he said he took part in his murder but didn’t mean to kill him, according to the appeals court.

The Alabama Attorney General’s office decried the appeals court’s ruling, saying at the time, according to CNN, “Smith’s IQ scores have consistently placed his IQ above that of someone who is intellectually disabled. The Attorney General thinks his death sentence was both just and constitutional.”

The Supreme Court will now consider making it harder for convicted murderers to show their lives should be spared because they are intellectually disabled.