More than 20 years ago, the Supreme Court outlawed the execution of intellectually disabled people convicted of capital crimes as " cruel and unusual " punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. In a major case from Alabama before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the justices are asked to clarify who qualifies as "intellectually disabled" and what role intelligence quotient -- also known as IQ -- test scores play in making the determination. Joseph Clifton Smith, an Alabama man who brought the case, confessed to a 1997 murder during a robbery, but challenged his death sentence on grounds he has had "substantially subaverage intellectual functioning" since a young age. Smith has taken five separate IQ tests over nearly 40 years, scoring 75 in 1979, 74 in 1982, 72 in 1998, 78 in 2014 and 7
Supreme Court weighs role of IQ scores in debate over execution of disabled people
ABC News1 hrs ago
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