Hamm v. Smith · ¶95

Nonetheless, the District Court found that Smith is mentally retarded and therefore that his death sentence was unconstitutional. ECF Doc. 135, p. 7. The court conceded that Smith's performance on the test the State's expert administered is “above what is considered significant subaverage intellectual functioning.” Ibid. It further acknowledged that “multiple IQ scores . . . taken over a long period of time place him in the borderline range, functioning just above intellectual disability.” Ibid. The court admitted that “this leans in favor of finding that Smith does not have significant subaverage intellectual functioning.” Ibid. But it still did “not find it strong enough” to not move on to the second step of Alabama's mental-retardation test and address Smith's “adaptive defcits.” Ibid. The District Court thought that Smith's scores left it “not clear” whether he was mentally retarded…

preliminary print (page proof)
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.