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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Mark Sherman

Supreme Court will hear Alabama appeal in bid to execute man found to be intellectually disabled

The Supreme Court will consider making it harder for convicted murderers to show their lives should be spared because they are intellectually disabled, according an order released early on Friday after an apparent technological glitch.

The justices' action comes in an appeal from Alabama, which is seeking to execute Joseph Clifton Smith. He was sentenced to death for killing a man in 1997. Lower federal courts found Smith is intellectually disabled and thus can't be executed.

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