LISTEN LIVE: Supreme Court considers Alabama appeal of execution of man with intellectual disability

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in a case that could make it harder for convicted killers to prove their lives had to be saved because they were mentally disabled.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments at 10 a.m. EST. Listen live in the video player above.

The justices are considering an appeal from the state of Alabama, which wants to execute a man who lower federal courts found to be mentally disabled and protected from execution.

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The Supreme Court banned the execution of people with intellectual disabilities in a landmark ruling in 2002.

Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, has been on death row for almost half his life after being convicted of beating a man to death in 1997.

The problem in Smith’s case is what happens when a person has multiple IQ scores just above 70, which has been widely accepted as a sign of intellectual disability. Smith’s five IQ tests showed scores ranging from 72 to 78. Smith was placed in classes for learning disabilities and left school after seventh grade, his lawyers said. At the time of the crime, he was doing math in kindergarten, spelling in third grade and reading in fourth grade.

The Supreme Court ruled in cases in 2014 and 2017 that states must consider other evidence of disability in borderline cases because of the margin of error on IQ tests.

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The state of Alabama appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled that Smith was mentally disabled. The justices had previously sent his case back to the federal appeals court in Atlanta, where the justices maintained they had taken a “comprehensive” approach in Smith’s case, apparently in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

But judges said in June they would take a fresh look at the case.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Smith did not meet his burden of showing an IQ of 70 or less, and the state wrote in its brief that discussing a comprehensive approach is an unwarranted expansion of the Supreme Court’s rulings.

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“He had multiple degrees in the 70s,” Marshall said in a phone interview. The question, he said, is how to address a continuum of outcomes. “I don’t think that picking and choosing who’s at the bottom is ultimately the way the court will go,” Marshall said.

President Donald Trump’s administration and 20 states support Alabama in the case. Solicitor General John Sawyer wrote on behalf of the Republican administration that Smith “did not meet the burden of proving that his IQ was likely 70 or lower.”

Smith’s lawyers say lower courts followed the law in conducting a “thorough evaluation of all relevant evidence” in a case with borderline IQ scores.

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“Diagnoses of intellectual disability based solely on IQ test scores are wrong and invalid,” human rights groups focusing on disabilities wrote in a brief supporting Smith.

Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for the beating of Durk Van Dam in Mobile County. Van Dam was found dead in his pickup truck. He was beaten to death with a hammer and robbed of $150, his shoes and tools, prosecutors said.

A federal judge in 2021 overturned Smith’s death sentence, though she acknowledged that “this is a close case.”

Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ of 70 or less, plus significant or major deficits in adaptive behavior and the onset of those problems before age 18.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala.