The supreme court will soon rule on Hamm v Smith, an Alabama death penalty case that could significantly increase the number of people with intellectual disability who are executed. In this case, Alabama is fighting to execute a man named Joseph Smith. Smith’s five IQ scores – 72, 74, 74, 75 and 78 – all fall around the bottom fifth percentile of the population.
Based on these IQ tests, which measure learning, reasoning and problem-solving, and Smith’s adaptive behaviors, which include the social and practical skills that Smith uses to navigate everyday life, a federal court determined that Smith is intellectually disabled. Because the supreme court held in its landmark 2002 Atkins ruling that executing anyone with an intellectual disability violates the constitution, Alabama cannot execute Smith.
But Alabama disagreed with this decision, even though empirical standards put the IQ threshold for intellectual disability between 70 and 75. Yes, Alabama wants to execute Smith. But the case could also create a new, dangerous protocol: when a capital defendant has taken multiple IQ tests, any score above 70 could close the door an intellectual disability claim.
A suspected boat explosion at a Miami sandbar sent at least 11 people to the hospital on Saturday with some suffering from burns and traumatic injuries, according to Juan Arias, the Miami Dade fire rescue battalion chief.
Israel’s top commander in the occupied West Bank has said the army is killing Palestinians at levels “not seen since 1967”, according to Haaretz.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine and Russia have agreed to carry out a large‑scale prisoner exchange involving 1,000 detainees on each side, marking a major humanitarian step amid the ongoing war.
Frustrated by Iran, Trump at last seizes enriched uranium
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the terminations of hundreds of humanities grants last year by the Trump administration’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) were unconstitutional and involved “blatant” discrimination. In April last year, Donald Trump’s administration terminated more than 1,400 grants, representing more than $100m in congressionally appropriated funds awarded to scholars, writers, research institutions and other humanities organizations.
