(WASHINGTON) — 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

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