Charlie Kirk shooting suspect seeks death penalty
Utah prosecutors have announced plans to charge Tyler James Robinson, 22, with aggravated murder in the shooting of Charlie Kirk and seek the death penalty.
WASHINGTON – After the Supreme Court said in 2002 that inmates with intellectual disabilities cannot be put to death, prosecutors have largely stopped seeking the death penalty for defendants with obvious developmental disabilities.
Borderline cases remained.
Judges often hear competing testimony from experts on whether a death row inmate has an intellectual disability severe enough to prevent an execution, a standard the high court leaves to each state to decide.
The justices on Dec. 10 will revisit the issue and discuss how courts should evaluate the results of multiple intelligence tests in close calls.
IQ scores of convicted murderers vary
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 2002, 144 people have had their death sentences canceled due to intellectual disability.
Whether the high court will make it harder to bring claims in the future is a matter of life and death for Joseph Smith, who was sentenced to Alabama’s death row for a brutal 1997 murder.
Smith’s IQ scores ranged from 72 to 78.
Because IQ tests have a margin of error, the lower court said Smith’s IQ could be below 70, one of the factors that defines intellectual disability.
However, the state argues that a preponderance of the evidence cannot prove that Smith is disabled because all five test scores were above 70.
“Joseph Smith was not mentally retarded and the Eighth Amendment does not invalidate the death sentence he received for the murder of Dirk Van Dam,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a prepared statement.
Justice Department upholds Alabama’s right to execute Smith
Smith was convicted of murdering Van Dam, who suffered 35 blunt force injuries and saw wounds to his neck, shoulders, and back.
The Justice Department sided with Alabama, arguing that some judges were confused about how to evaluate multiple IQ tests under Supreme Court rules that fall under cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
Approximately 10% of death row inmates claim that they cannot be executed because they have an intellectual disability. About one-third of the claims were approved, said John Bloom, director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project at Cornell University School of Law.
He said this is a significant success rate for appeals by death row inmates.
Smith’s lawyers argue that the multiple IQ scores need to be evaluated “holistically,” including testimony from experts about their validity. And he told the court that if IQ scores alone are not conclusive, defendants can submit additional evidence.
They argued that they did so when lower courts ruled that Smith could not be executed.
The judge called Smith a “closed case.”
Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ of 70 or less, a “serious or substantial deficit in adaptive behavior,” and the onset of those characteristics before age 18.
U.S. District Judge Curry v. Granade said the evaluation of Smith’s mental functioning was a “tense case,” but wrote that “the evidence shows that Smith’s intelligence and adaptive functioning were deficient throughout his life.”
Based in Atlanta 11th The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which leaves decisions up to the states.
But subsequent decisions in 2014 and 2016 criticized Florida and Texas for how they assessed disability.
The court said states cannot rely on a single IQ test and must consider the possible margin of error in the test, as well as other factors.
The Justice Department argues that if these prior convictions prevent the state of Alabama from executing Smith, even though all five of Smith’s IQ scores were above 70, they should be overturned.
Mental health-related organizations also participate
Mental health groups told the Supreme Court there is “broad scientific and professional consensus” on how to determine intellectual functioning, which includes considering more than test scores.
“Diagnosis of intellectual disability based solely on IQ test scores is false and invalid,” the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association said in a brief supporting Smith.
Bloom, a legal expert at Cornell Law School, said states typically follow these guidelines.
He found it odd that the Supreme Court agreed to accept the case, saying the justices could quickly decide that lower courts had generally gotten the multiple IQ tests right.
“Maybe they thought there was a bigger problem,” Bloom said of the judge. “There is no confusion about this.”
But Alabama Attorney General Marshall said the high court brought this case to provide needed clarity about the cumulative impact of scores.
No matter what the court chooses, Marshall said, “I think we will prevail.”
