Justice on Trial: The Battle Over Executing The Intellectually Disabled

An execution chamber where lethal injection is administered. Photo via CNN

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The topic of capital punishment remains a controversial subject inspiring endless debates on its implementation and legality for many centuries. Philosophers and jurists alike have debated the merits of its usage and adoption. All over the world, many nations have continued to authorize and accept the death penalty not just as a legitimate method of stopping crime, but also as a standard that promotes justice. In the United States alone, a total of 27 states have the death penalty in place, with only four states issuing a moratorium or a temporary pause on the sentence’s administration.  

However, a pending Supreme Court case that will be argued on the 10th of December 2025, will determine the legality of capital punishment implementation for those on death row with intellectual disabilities. Hamm vs. Smith (2025) will decide whether or not convicted criminals with intellectual disabilities may qualify for the death penalty across the United States. 

To provide further context, this case involves a man named Joseph Clifton Smith, who was convicted of capital murder and given the death sentence in the state of Alabama back in 1997. In 2022, years after Smith’s sentencing, he filed for a motion to appeal his ruling to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, with his lawyers citing proof of Smith’s intellectual disabilities through his tough childhood, and a series of IQ tests in which Smith scored as low as 70. As a result, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Smith, finding his sentence to be unjust. 

Yet, the State of Alabama, along with Dr. King, the man who conducted the tests on Smith, disagreed with the ruling, believing that the range of IQ test scores Smith had qualified him for capital punishment, and decided to appeal the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. As of 2025, the Supreme Court has agreed to review the case, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch setting the argument date for December 10, 2025. 

Historically, this event isn’t the first time the Supreme Court has heard arguments on the implementation of capital punishment. In 1972, the case of Furman v. Georgia ruled that the use of capital punishment in the state of Georgia was unconstitutional because it had violated the Eighth Amendment’s protection against “cruel and unusual” punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s right to due process. As a result of this 5-4 decision, the practice of capital punishment was deemed unconstitutional and banned nationwide. 

However, four years after Furman, the 7-2 decision on the 1976 Supreme Court case Gregg v. Georgia reversed the nationwide ban on capital punishment and allowed the death sentence to be enforced. The decision permitted many states across the country to design a framework for the death sentence while empowering juries in the process as well. 

Besides the death penalty’s centuries-long existence in the United States, it’s important to understand how the particular policy affected those convicted on death row with intellectual disabilities. This was the case with an African American man by the name of Ricky Ray Rector, who, like Smith, was convicted of capital murder after shooting and killing a police officer in the state of Arkansas. Despite having a history of learning disabilities and other mental illnesses, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton refused to commute Rector’s sentence to life imprisonment. Rector’s lawyers would later try to petition the Supreme Court to hear the case, but unfortunately were denied in a decision vote that saw Justice Thurgood Marshall dissenting. Rector was subsequently executed in the year after the decision in 1992. Ten years later, the Supreme Court would rule in Atkins v. Virginia that it was unconstitutional to execute those with intellectual disabilities in 2002. 

The decision on Hamm vs. Smith will determine whether or not individuals with intellectual disabilities will continue to be protected from capital punishment, a ruling that could have profound implications for the justice system and the treatment of vulnerable populations in the United States. It will also reshape the debate on capital punishment, providing the framework to confront fundamental questions about morality, while redefining justice for all.

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This article was edited by Siya Patel.