On Thursday, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to dismiss the Hamm v. Smith case, effectively upholding its rulings that people with intellectual disabilities should not be executed, and that IQ tests alone are not enough to determine whether someone has an intellectual disability. A one sentence, unsigned opinion held that the court’s earlier decision to hear the case was “improvidently granted.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

“The Court is not equipped in this case to provide any meaningful guidance on how courts should assess multiple IQ scores,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a concurrence, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “All the parties here agree that the Eighth Amendment does not prescribe a single formula for weighing multiple IQ scores.”

Intellectual disabilities, the Supreme Court has ruled, should be determined........

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