Supreme Court sends case testing limits of death penalty for intellectually disabled back to lower court

The Supreme Court vacated a federal appeals court’s decision blocking a death row inmate’s execution because he says he’s intellectually disabled, ordering the lower court to issue a clearer ruling.  

After sitting on Alabama’s appeal of the decision for months – an unusual move for the court – the justices issued a per curiam ruling ordering the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to clarify how multiple IQ scores should be evaluated in cases like Joseph Clifton Smith’s. 

Smith...