WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will consider making it harder for convicted murderers to show their lives should be spared because they are intellectually disabled, according an order released early on Friday after an apparent technological glitch.

The justices' action comes in an appeal from Alabama, which is seeking to execute Joseph Clifton Smith. He was sentenced to death for killing a man in 1997. Lower federal courts found Smith is intellectually disabled and thus can't be executed.

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When it's argued in the fall, the case could be the first in which the Supreme Court cuts back on its 23-year-old landmark ruling that barred the death penalty for people who are intellectually disabled.

At issue is what happens in borderline cases, when scores on IQ tests are

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