A Phoenix mother accused of killing her young daughter and dumping the body behind a business could be spared the death penalty if an initial IQ screening result holds up, after an Arizona appeals court sided with her in a fight over how soon experts were allowed to test her. Sophia Simmons scored 53 on that initial screening, according to the appeals court ruling, a number far below the threshold Arizona law uses to closely scrutinize intellectual disability claims in capital cases.
The ruling, issued Friday, October 23, found that a trial court let an intellectual disability expert examine Simmons too soon, before a required waiting period had passed. As reported by law360.com, the appellate panel also rejected the state's argument that the phrase “not less than 20 days after” a deadline means the same thing as “within 20 days of” that deadline — a distinction that determined whether prosecutors' expert could examine Simmons sooner. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that experts must wait at least 20 days after Simmons' school, medical and other records are due before examining her, and the decision rejected prosecutors' request to have their own expert examine her ahead of that window.
A Case Rooted in a Christmas Eve Discovery
Simmons is accused of killing her young daughter and leaving the body in a dumpster behind a business near 31st Avenue and Thomas Road, where police said the girl's body was found on Christmas Eve 2023, according to azfamily.com. She faces charges including first-degree murder, child abuse and tampering with evidence, and the outlet reported she was being held on a $1 million bond. Court documents cited by the station say Simmons admitted to beating her child, telling investigators “it went too far.”
The same court documents indicated that someone had attempted to clean evidence of a crime from Simmons' townhome. The Arizona Department of Child Services told the station it had no prior contact or involvement with her before her daughter's death. Maricopa County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Simmons, and her trial is slated to start in April 2027, according to KTAR News 92.3 FM.
How Arizona's Intellectual Disability Law Works
Arizona law bars executing anyone found to have an intellectual disability, and it requires experts to closely review cases when a person scores 75 or below on an IQ test. Under the state's statute on mental evaluations of capital defendants, a prescreening psychological expert's finding that a defendant's IQ is higher than 75 means a death-penalty notice cannot be dismissed on intellectual disability grounds, according to the Arizona Legislature's statute. That threshold is part of why the timing dispute over when Simmons could be tested carried so much weight for both sides.
The court has made no decision on whether Simmons is intellectually disabled, and Friday's ruling settled only the procedural question of when examinations could occur, not the underlying disability determination. The appeals court's ruling applies to death penalty cases across Arizona, not just Simmons', potentially reshaping how quickly intellectual disability experts can be brought in across the state's capital docket.
A Precedent From a Prior Arizona Case
Arizona courts have grappled with similar intellectual disability questions in capital cases before. In a 2020 case involving defendant Apolinar Altamirano, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed and remanded rather than upholding the trial court's finding that he had proven intellectual disability following an IQ evaluation, according to the Arizona Supreme Court opinion. An intellectual disability finding can take the death penalty off the table entirely — though no such finding has been reached in Simmons' case.
For now, Simmons still faces the death penalty in her daughter's killing while the procedural dispute over testing timelines gets sorted out. Whether the 53 score from her initial screening translates into a formal intellectual disability finding remains an open question for the trial court to resolve as the case moves toward its scheduled 2027 trial date.
