The U.S. Supreme Court ordered an appeals court to take a second look at its decision setting aside an intellectually disabled Alabama inmate’s death sentence.
Justices determined on Nov. 4 that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will have to clarify its 2023 ruling setting aside the death sentence of Joseph Clifton Smith.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the two-page order issued by the high court.
They disagreed with the court’s direction to remand the case to the Eleventh Circuit, which upheld a federal district court’s reversal of Smith’s death sentence. The two justices also voted to hear Alabama’s appeal and schedule an oral argument before the Supreme Court in the matter….