The Guardian · US news · Original story
US supreme court dismisses Alabama’s bid to execute intellectually disabled man
Court throws out state’s challenge to judicial finding that inmate convicted of murder is ineligible for death penalty
The US supreme court on Thursday threw out a challenge by the state of Alabama to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible under the US constitution for the death penalty.
In this highly unusual move, and in a single-sentence, unsigned order, the court dismissed Alabama’s petition for review in Hamm v Smith without deciding it, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials to the method used by a lower court to determine that Joseph Clifton Smith was intellectually disabled and therefore could not be executed.
Continue reading...
Lucy Campbell · Thu, May 21, 2026, 10:54 AM
US news | The Guardian
Court throws out state’s challenge to judicial finding that inmate convicted of murder is ineligible for death penalty
The US supreme court on Thursday threw out a challenge by the state of Alabama to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible under the US constitution for the death penalty.
In this highly unusual move, and in a single-sentence, unsigned order, the court dismissed Alabama’s petition for review in Hamm v Smith without deciding it, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials to the method used by a lower court to determine that Joseph Clifton Smith was intellectually disabled and therefore could not be executed.
Continue reading...This page shows an excerpt; reporting belongs to the original publisher. Some images or embeds may be omitted compared with the live article.
← More stories · Front page
