Federal court rules Alabama cannot execute Joseph Smith due to his mental disability
The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that Alabama cannot execute death row prisoner Joseph Clifton Smith because of his intellectual disability.
This decision effectively vacates Smith’s death sentence, affirming the U.S. District Court’s 2021 decision.
Smith remains a convicted murderer, and as of Friday morning, the Alabama Department of Corrections continued to list Smith as one of over 100 inmates held on death row in Holman Correctional Facility.
Smith’s crime and sentencing
In November 1997, police officers found the body of Durk Van Dam in an isolated area of Mobile County. Lying near his Ford Ranger truck, Van Dam had 35 blunt force injuries and wounds from a saw on his neck, shoulder and back.
Law enforcement interviewed Smith and another man, Larry Reid, the same day that they found Van Dam’s body, and Smith gave two statements with conflicting versions of the events leading to Van Dam’s death.
In the first, he placed all blame on Reid, denying any involvement but confessing to being present at the scene of the crime. In the second, he said that the plan was to rob Van Dam. The pair heard Van Dam was carrying $1,500 in cash, and they wanted to split it.
He admitted to finding a total of $140 on Van Dam after he was dead and taking Van Dam’s boots and work tools for himself. Smith also told officers that he and Reid left the body under a mattress near the truck.
Several witnesses testified to seeing Smith return to a motel with blood on his clothes, and one said he heard Smith describing how he beat Van Dam.
In 1998, a jury convicted Smith of murder, and a judge sentenced him to die in Alabama's electric chair at a date to be set by the Alabama Supreme Court.
Of course, an execution date was never set for Smith, and Alabama stopped using the electric chair as a method for execution in 2002. Smith has now served over 25 years in prison.
Details on Smith’s intellectual disability
During his sentencing and throughout the appeals process, Smith and his attorneys have argued that he “was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance” at the time of the crime. Several people testified that Smith’s father and stepfather were abusive toward him as a child and that he had been labeled as mentally disabled since the fourth grade.
Alabama law defines intellectual disability as an IQ of 70 or below, “significant or substantial deficits in adaptive behavior” and the onset of those qualities before the age of 18.
At eight years old, Smith obtained a full-scale IQ score of 75. Following Van Dam’s murder, clinical psychologist Dr. James Chudy conducted his own analysis and testified that Smith’s “true IQ score could be as high as 75 or as low as 69,” according to court documents. Of the known IQ tests Smith has taken in his life, his scores have ranged from 72-78.
After exhausting his direct appeals options, Smith petitioned for habeas relief, arguing that his death sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because of his intellectually disability.
Ultimately, the district court held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Smith is intellectually disabled. The district court ruled that he is, citing additional evidence of intellectual disability beyond IQ, including testimony of adaptive behavior deficits.
Upon reviewing the evidence, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached athhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser or donate to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama inmate Joseph Smith can't be executed, says federal court
