The Supreme Court will hear a death penalty dispute from Alabama involving how to determine a defendant’s alleged intellectual disability when weighing multiple IQ tests.

The court said Friday it would hear Hamm v. Smith in its next term, which begins in October, to consider whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores in assessing a so-called “Atkins claim.”

In Atkins v. Virginia, the majority of the court ruled in 2022 that executing a person who is intellectually disabled ran afoul of the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Intellectual disability is usually an IQ score of 70 or below.

After the Atkins ruling, Joseph Smith renewed challenges to his death sentence. He was convicted of capital murder for beating a man to death in 1997 with a hammer and a saw during a robbery.

Lower courts have sided with Smith in his challenge to his death sentence, ruling that his IQ is too low. But the state says all of his IQ tests have been above 70.

“Joseph Smith is not intellectually disabled,” argued lawyers for the state, representing Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm. “With five IQ scores above 70, Smith did not carry his burden by a preponderance of the evidence. Even adjusting for error, there is no way to combine his scores — not the average, median, mode, nor any composite metric — to find an IQ of 70 or less.”

“Neither the Eighth Amendment nor precedent exempts Smith from capital punishment,” the filing read.

But lawyers representing Smith say the lower courts got it right after reviewing expert testimony and various factors, noting Smith’s IQ was just 72 at the age when he committed the crime.

“This was a fact-intensive review that involved credibility determinations,” his filing stated. “The Commissioner fails to demonstrate or even discuss any suggestion of clear error in the decisions below that would warrant review, much less reversal.”

It took at least four justices to vote in favor of reviewing the state’s appeal from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had affirmed the lower court’s reasoning that Smith’s IQ could likely be under 70, given a margin of error.

• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.