This case implicates two persistent conflicts of authority with regard to how courts are to determine whether a person suffers from an intellectual disability and thus, under the Eighth Amendment, may not be put to death. See Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2003); Moore v. Texas, 581 U.S. 1, 7 (2017). Indeed, Respondent filed a petition for certiorari raising a question nearly identical to the first question presented here, rooted in the same circuit split. See Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Comm'r v. Smith, No. 23167 (filed Aug. 17, 2023). That petition is presently set for conference on December 8, 2023.

The questions presented here are:

1. Whether a court considering the element of "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning" may disregard a valid IQ test with a range under 70 simply because not all of the tests available show such a range—as the panel below and the Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits have held—or, rather, whether the court must proceed to evaluate adaptive functioning—as the Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits have held.

2. Whether the Alabama Supreme Court, which provided the rule adopted below, erred by interpreting the Eighth Amendment to require a capital defendant to prove a present adaptive functioning deficit despite his incarceration, in conflict with the Eighth Circuit, Ninth Circuit, and at least seven state courts of last resort to consider the issue.

Whether a court may disregard a valid IQ test with a range under 70 simply because not all tests show such a range, or must proceed to evaluate adaptive functioning