A Victory Worth Savoring: Hamm v. Smith and the Words That Came Back Around

Joseph Smith, around age 12.

On May 21, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued a three-word per curiam order in Hamm v. Smith — and those three words saved a man's life.

The Court dismissed Alabama's petition to execute Joseph Clifton Smith as improvidently granted, leaving intact the Eleventh Circuit's ruling that Smith is intellectually disabled and cannot constitutionally be executed under Atkins v. Virginia. At issue was whether courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores in assessing an Atkins claim. Smith had scored between 72 and 78 across five full-scale IQ tests, and the district court — evaluating those scores holistically, in light of expert testimony and confidence intervals — concluded he met the threshold for intellectual disability. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Alabama pressed for a ruling that would have made a single above-70 score dispositive. The Court, ultimately, declined to give them one.

For those who have walked with Joseph through years of litigation, there is a particular sweetness to how this ended.

Back in Rule 32 proceedings in Alabama state court, the Alabama Supreme Court granted Joseph certiorari on an issue that could have opened the door to a new trial — only to dismiss that grant as improvidently granted, closing a path that might have led to freedom. The phrase landed like a door slamming shut.

Now those same words have come back around. Dismissed as improvidently granted. This time, they mean Alabama cannot execute him. This time, they are the sound of a door held open.

The law is long, and justice moves in strange circuits. But sometimes — rarely, and worth marking when it happens — the words find their way home.