USA - Joseph Clifton Smith

USA - Alabama. Joseph Clifton Smith cannot be executed due to intellectual disability

May 19, 2023:

(May 19, 2023) - Joseph Clifton Smith cannot be executed due to intellectual disability.
The US Eleventh Court of Appeals has ruled the state of Alabama cannot execute man with an intellectual disability who was sentenced to death for murdering a man in 1997, upholding a lower court’s decision.
It means that Joseph Clifton Smith cannot be executed unless the decision is overturned by the US Supreme Court.
Alabama Attorney General, Steve Marshall, said he will seek review from the United States Supreme Court.
Senior U.S. District Judge Callie Granade ruled in August 2021 that Smith was intellectually disabled and “cannot constitutionally be executed”, and vacated his death sentence.
The judge referenced the district court’s finding that Smith’s “intellectual and adaptive functioning issues clearly arose before he was 18 years of age,” according to the 2021 appeals court ruling, which agreed with the lower court.
Smith, now 53, White, was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death for the November 1997 murder of Durk Van Dam. Smith confessed to the killing, first admitting he watched Van Dam’s murder and then saying he participated but didn’t intend to kill the man.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/19/us/alabama-death-row-inmate-intellectual-disability/index.html#:~:text=The%20Attorney%20General%20thinks%20his,was%20both%20just%20and%20constitutional.%E2%80%9D&text=In%202021%2C%20a%20US%20District,and%20vacated%20his%20death%20sentence.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/appeals-court-rules-alabama-cant-execute-intellectually-disabled-death-row-inmate.html