He Never Scored Below 71 on Five IQ Tests. The Supreme Court Still Let Him Escape Alabama's Death Row (Hamm v. Smith, 2026)

75. 74. 72. 78. 74. Those are Joseph Clifton Smith's five IQ scores, taken across nearly three decades. Not one of them touches 70. Yet on May 21, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States let stand a ruling that keeps him off Alabama's death row for being intellectually disabled anyway. Four Justices called that outcome statistically indefensible, and one of them wants to tear up the entire doctrine that produced it.

The Numbers Alabama Wanted the Court to See

In 1997, two days after being released from custody, Joseph Clifton Smith and an accomplice murdered Durk Van Dam during a robbery, attacking him with a power saw and leaving 35 blunt-force injuries on his body. A jury convicted him and recommended death. A year after his sentence became final, Atkins v. Virginia (2002) barred the execution of the intellectually disabled, and Smith spent the next two decades trying to prove he qualified. He took five IQ tests over that period. The scores: 75, 74, 72, 78, and 74. He reads at an 11th-grade level.

What Actually Happened in Hamm v. Smith

A federal District Court held that Smith is intellectually disabled anyway, reasoning that his scores collectively “place him in the borderline range, functioning just above intellectual disability,” and then leaning on evidence of his adaptive deficits (difficulty holding a bank account, buying groceries, living independently) to push him under the line. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. In 2024, the Supreme Court vacated that decision and asked the Eleventh Circuit to clarify whether it had used a rigid “one-low-score” rule or a “holistic” one. The Eleventh Circuit answered “holistic” and affirmed again. Alabama returned to the Supreme Court asking exactly how courts should weigh multiple IQ scores together. The Court took the case, received full briefing on the statistics, and then dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted — a one-line disposal that leaves Smith's death sentence vacated without ever answering the question it agreed to decide.

A Rule Three Cases Never Actually Settled

Atkins never defined intellectual disability, leaving States to fill the gap while suggesting an IQ around 70 as the marker. Hall v. Florida (2014) held that a single test score can't be treated as final without accounting for its margin of error. Moore v. Texas (2017) added that courts can't cherry-pick where in that margin a defendant's “true” IQ sits using facts about him personally. What none of the three cases ever explained is what a court should do with five different scores at once — and that gap is exactly what swallowed Smith's case.

Why the Court's Silence Is the Real Story

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, defended the dismissal in concurrence. Her reasoning: there is no circuit split, only a few dozen cases nationwide have raised this exact issue, and the lower courts' “hoslitic” method of reading scores alongside expert testimony tracks how the American Psychological Association and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities say clinicians actually work. In her view, this was simply the wrong case, on an underdeveloped record, to hand down a nationwide formula.

Justice Alito's Dissent: “Statistically Indefensible”

Justice Alito, joined in relevant part by the Chief Justice, Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch, did not accept that answer. He laid out three recognized methods psychologists actually use for multiple scores — a composite score, the median score, or an expert's judgment about the “central tendency” of a cluster of scores — and showed that the lower courts used none of them. Instead, the Eleventh Circuit anchored its finding on the lower bound of Smith's single lowest score (a 72, whose margin of error touched 69), even though basic statistics say the values near the center of a confidence interval, not its edge, are the more likely estimate of a person's true IQ. Alito illustrated the absurdity with a hypothetical: a defendant with eleven scores in the 80s and 90s and one 71 would, under the lower courts' logic, still have his IQ decided by that single outlier.

Whether a defendant lives or dies will hinge on which expert a judge finds more credible.

Justice Thomas Goes Further: Overrule Atkins Itself

Justice Thomas joined Alito's statistical critique in full, but wrote separately to say the entire Atkins doctrine is illegitimate. His argument: the Eighth Amendment's original meaning bars only cruel methods of execution, not the execution of people below a chosen intelligence threshold, and the only historical analogue — the common-law protection for “idiots” with IQs around 25 — has nothing to do with someone who reads at an 11th-grade level. For Thomas, Atkins is egregiously wrong, unworkable, and ripe for reversal in a future case.

Why This Should Matter to Every Law Student and Litigator

Strip away the death-penalty setting and Hamm v. Smith is really a case about how far expert evidence can be pushed to reach a preferred outcome, and how a court's failure to fix a clear evidentiary standard turns litigation into a contest of credibility rather than a contest of facts. Both the District Court and the Eleventh Circuit openly admitted that the case came down to which expert the judge found more believable. That is precisely the risk in every matter that turns on statistical or scientific evidence: arbitration valuations, insurance quantum, forensic accounting, medical negligence, DNA and forensic science in criminal trials. A lawyer who can draft precise pleadings around expert methodology, and cross-examine an expert on the assumptions buried inside a number, wins these fights before the judge ever has to “believe” anyone.

Key Takeaways

• Smith scored above 70 on all five IQ tests taken across nearly 30 years, yet remains off death row.

• The Supreme Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted, deciding nothing on the merits.

• Sotomayor and Jackson defended the lower courts' holistic, expert-driven approach as consistent with clinical practice.

• Alito, joined by the Chief Justice, Thomas and Gorsuch, called the lower courts' method statistically backwards.

• Thomas separately urged the Court to overrule Atkins v. Virginia altogether in a future case.

Build the Litigation Skillset This Case Demands

Cases like this are won and lost on precise drafting: framing the issue for certiorari, drafting cross-examination on an expert's methodology, and structuring pleadings that force a court to apply a standard rather than guess at one. ILW's Advanced Legal Drafting 6.0 course is built for exactly this kind of courtroom-ready drafting skill, across 12 subjects with live mentorship, designed for law students and practising lawyers who want to argue cases like this one, not just read about them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Hamm v. Smith (2026) about?

Hamm v. Smith is a 2026 U.S. Supreme Court case about how courts should evaluate multiple IQ scores when a death-row inmate claims intellectual disability under Atkins v. Virginia. Joseph Clifton Smith scored 75, 74, 72, 78, and 74 on five IQ tests, all above the commonly used 70-point threshold, but lower courts still found him intellectually disabled and vacated his death sentence.

What did the Supreme Court actually decide?

The Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, in a one-line per curiam order. It did not rule on the merits of how courts should combine multiple IQ scores, leaving the Eleventh Circuit's decision vacating Smith's death sentence in place.

What is the Atkins v. Virginia standard for intellectual disability?

Atkins v. Virginia (2002) held that executing an intellectually disabled person violates the Eighth Amendment. It left states to define intellectual disability but suggested three elements: significantly subaverage intellectual functioning (generally an IQ around 70 or below), significant deficits in adaptive behavior, and onset before age 18.

Why did Justice Alito dissent in Hamm v. Smith?

Justice Alito argued that the lower courts used a statistically indefensible method, anchoring their finding on the lower bound of Smith's single lowest IQ score instead of using recognized methods such as a composite score, a median score, or an expert judgment about the central tendency of all his scores together.

Did the Supreme Court overrule Atkins v. Virginia?

No. The majority did not touch Atkins. Justice Thomas, in a separate dissent, argued that Atkins is egregiously wrong and unworkable and should be overruled in a future case, but no other Justice joined that specific call this time.

Read the full text of the judgment here: Hamm v. Smith (2026) - Full Judgment PDF

For more Supreme Court case analysis and career updates for law students and lawyers, join ILW's WhatsApp Channel.

Keywords: Hamm v Smith 2026, Atkins v Virginia, intellectual disability death penalty, IQ score death penalty case, Eighth Amendment intellectual disability, Supreme Court criminal law case analysis, Advanced Legal Drafting course, law student career course, expert testimony cross-examination drafting