Hamm v. Smith · ¶182

It is likewise difficult for courts to develop objective, judicially manageable standards for evaluating intelligence that do not turn on IQ. Without clear IQ criteria, Atkins proceedings will be little more than battles of experts, with one side saying that the defendant's intellectual functioning is “significantly subaverage,” and the other saying that it is not. Whether a defendant lives or dies will hinge on which expert a judge finds more credible. Cf. 536 U. S., at 353 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (predicting that Atkins will “tur[n] the process of capital trial into a game”). Indeed, both the District Court and Eleventh Circuit openly admitted that whether Smith would be executed “ `largely [came] down to which expert' the district court `believed.' ” App. to Pet. for Cert. 8a (quoting id., at 91a; alteration in original); see 67 F. 4th, at 1353.

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