Supreme Court Seems Divided on Role of IQ in Weighing Death Sentences

The justices reviewed whether an appeals court had erred in the way it analyzed potential intellectual disability by a convicted murderer.

The Supreme Court in Washington on Nov. 10, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court wrestled on Dec. 10 over how judges should weigh IQ scores when determining whether a convict was wrongly sentenced to death.

The case, Hamm v. Smith, centered on an Alabama man convicted of murder in the 1990s, but the legal questions involved stem from a 2002 decision by the high court known as Atkins v. Virginia.