Ketanji Brown Jackson Questions Lawyer on Key Arguments in Hamm v. Smith

District Court Error and Petitioner's Burden

• ⚖️ Justice Jackson questioned the basis for determining if the district court erred in the Hamm v. Smith case, specifically asking if Alabama had adopted any of the five methods presented.
• 📌 The petitioner's attorney, Robert M. Overing, was pressed on whether he had asked the district court to apply specific methods for evaluating intellectual disability.
• 💡 Jackson highlighted that the petitioner's burden is to establish district court error, and it's unclear if the court was ever asked to use the methods now being argued.

Party Presentation and Legal Arguments

• 🗣️ Justice Jackson raised concerns about party presentation, referencing a previous case (Clark v. Sweeney) where a habeas grant was reversed based on an argument not presented by the petitioner.
• ❓ She expressed confusion, as she thought the case's presented question was about the cumulative effects test, which also did not appear to have been raised in lower courts.
• 🚀 The attorney stated that evidence was presented regarding consistent scores above 70, and that the district court did not take seriously the whole of the IQ evidence by not mentioning a score of 78.

Reasonably Reliable Methods and IQ Assessment

• 📊 The discussion touched upon whether the district court was allowed to look only at one IQ score (72) when multiple scores were available.
• 🎯 The attorney suggested that if the court agrees it has to consider the cumulative effect of multiple IQ scores, then the district court did not fulfill this.
• 📈 The possibility of discussing reasonably reliable methods was raised as a potential point of guidance, though it was noted that this specific argument did not come up before.
• ✅ The core of the petitioner's claim is that there is no way to prove an IQ below 70 using common and expert-approved methods.