In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing someone with an intellectual disability violates the 8 th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Later decisions in 2014 and 2016 faulted ...
The court also sent JosephSmith’s case from Alabama’s death row back to the court of appeals for more clarification of the basis for the lower court’s decision. Alabama had asked the justices to ...
Born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, to Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith Jr. grew up on a series of tenant farms in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Though in his youth ...