紐時賞析／最高院激辯：智障死囚可否免死

Justices Grapple With Death Penalty Case on Intellectual Disability

最高院激辯：智障死囚可否免死

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled with the question of how states should assess intellectual disabilities to decide which capital defendants are spared the death penalty.

美國聯邦最高法院週三陷入激烈辯論，焦點就是：各州到底該怎麼評估「智能障礙」，才能決定哪些死刑犯可以因此免死？

The justices heard arguments in an Alabama case involving the ways IQ test results are used to evaluate mental capacity. The discussion came two decades after the court barred the execution of people with mental disabilities as a violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

大法官審理一起來自阿拉巴馬州的案件，焦點在於如何用智力測驗結果來判定心智能力。這場討論距最高法院以違反憲法第八增修條文「禁止殘忍、不人道的刑罰」爲由，禁止處決智能障礙者，已過20年。

That ruling, in Atkins v. Virginia, gave states leeway to determine their own processes for deciding who was intellectually disabled. It led to follow-up cases from Florida and Texas in which the court further limited capital punishment.

當年的「阿特金斯訴維吉尼亞州」案裁決，賦予各州一定自主權，制定智能障礙的判定程序。之後佛羅里達州與德州又延伸出後續案件，促使最高法院進一步限制死刑適用。

The issue in the Alabama case the justices heard Wednesday is how states and lower courts should resolve cases in which defendants have taken IQ tests multiple times and received varying results, as well as the extent to which they must consider a broader evaluation of evidence in deciding if a person is disabled.

大法官這次審理的阿拉巴馬州案，爭議在於：當被告多次接受智力測驗且分數不一時，各州與下級法院應如何裁量；及判定一個人是否有智能障礙時，法院是否必須納入更廣泛的證據評估。

The case deals with Joseph Clifton Smith, who was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering a man he planned to rob in 1997. In the years before and after the murder, Smith took five IQ tests with scores ranging from 72 to 78. The key part of Alabama’s law on mental disability turns on whether defendants score 70 or lower on the test. But a lower court found Smith was intellectually disabled, in part because the tests have a margin of error.

案件主角是1997年搶劫殺人而被判死刑的史密斯。犯案前後，他共接受五次智力測驗，結果介於72到78分之間。阿拉巴馬州法律以智商70作爲判定智能障礙的重要門檻，但下級法院以智力測驗有誤差範圍爲由，認定史密斯有智能障礙。

The outcome will likely determine whether Smith is executed or spends the rest of his life on death row. It also has implications for how courts apply the death penalty in other states.

最終裁定將決定史密斯被處決或關到死。此案也將影響其他州在死刑案件中如何適用相關標準。

During a lively argument Wednesday, a majority of justices suggested that Alabama’s data-driven approach could be too rigid, in part because it would not allow lower courts to account for other evidence of a person’s disability.

週三的辯論氣氛非常火熱，多數大法官指出，阿拉巴馬「只看數字」的做法可能太死板，因爲它不讓下級法院把其他證據納入考量，來判斷一個人到底有沒有智能障礙。

Alabama’s attorney, Robert M. Overing, suggested that under that approach, the highest score could be given more weight. A test, he said, could underestimate IQ if, for instance, a defendant is tired or sick.

阿拉巴馬州政府檢察官歐弗林表示，可以用最高分當標準，因爲被告要是那天剛好累壞了或身體不舒服，測得的智商分數可能會偏低。

All three liberal justices said that the court’s past decisions meant that defendants had to have an opportunity to present a full picture of their intellectual functioning beyond just test scores.()

三位自由派大法官強調，最高法院過往的裁定已經表明，被告有權提出完整的智能評估證據，不能只靠智力測驗分數一刀切。

文／Ann E. Marimow，譯／國際中心

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