There is coverage of two issues in Georgia. A federal district judge, yesterday afternoon, rejected an inmate's petition regarding the state's supply of sodium thiopental, over the issue of the drug's expiration date.
Also yesterday, the ful U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, heard oral arguments concerning the state's standard for determination of mental retardation in capital cases.
"Judge rejects Georgia inmate's execution drug concerns," is the AP report, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit by a Georgia inmate who claimed the state's stockpile of a key lethal injection drug expired and that using outdated drugs may cause excruciating pain.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten on Tuesday denied Roy Willard Blankenship's request to halt his execution until more details are released about the state's supply of sodium thiopental.
State attorneys argued that the sedative will not expire until February 2014 and claimed the lawsuit was a backdoor attempt to commute his sentence.
Blankenship was set to be executed last week for the 1978 murder of an elderly woman, but the state pardons board postponed it earlier this month to give authorities more time to conduct DNA testing on the victim's remains.
Reuters posts,"Federal judge refuses stay of Georgia execution." It's written by David Beasley.
A federal judge refused late on Tuesday to issue a stay of execution for a man who claimed Georgia's supply of lethal injection drug sodium thiopental has "almost certainly" expired, meaning he would be subjected to an unnecessarily painful death.
In his ruling, Judge Timothy C. Batten held inmate Roy Willard Blankenship failed to prove his claims Georgia's supply of the drug has expired.
"Even if Blankenship could show that it was sure or very likely that the sodium pentothal has expired, he has failed to show that the expired drug is less effective and that its use will therefore cause him to needlessly suffer," Batten also ruled.
Georgia claims its stockpile of the drug does not expire until 2014.
Earlier coverage of the Georgia lethal injection drug dispute begins at the link.
Turning to the mental retardation issue, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report is, "Mentally retarded inmate fights to live." It's by Bill Rankin.
Warren Hill sits on Georgia's death row, even though a state court judge has found him mentally retarded, which the nation's highest court says bars him from execution.
Hill's problem is that he was found to be mentally retarded under the lowest legal threshold but not the toughest -- beyond a reasonable doubt. Even though Georgia became the first state in the country over 20 years ago to ban executions of mentally retarded people, it is now the only state that sets the highest barrier for defendants raising such claims to escape execution.
On Tuesday, Hill's lawyer told the federal appeals court in Atlanta that instead of protecting the mentally retarded from execution, Georgia has done just the opposite. By erecting such a stringent burden of proof, inmates who are erroneously found not to be mentally retarded are going to be put to death, Mark Olive said.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not give states "carte blanche authority" to impose barriers that are impossible to clear, he said.
During lively arguments in a packed courtroom, a number of judges seemed to agree.
Among states with the death penalty, 22 require defendants raising mental retardation claims to prove it by the lowest threshold, a preponderance of the evidence. Four states have adopted a tougher test, the clear and convincing evidence standard. Three states have not set a burden of proof.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not issue an immediate ruling. About 10 Georgia death-row inmates who failed to prove mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt could receive new hearings if the court finds Georgia's standard unconstitutional.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mentally retarded individuals, because of their disabilities in reasoning, judgment and self control, do not act with the same level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct.
And:
Hill sits on death row for bludgeoning a fellow inmate to death with a nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, he was serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend.
On appeal, Hill's lawyers claimed he was mentally retarded, but Superior Court Judge John Allen of Columbus found Hill could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. After the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of the mentally retarded in 2002, Allen reconsidered his initial decision. Allen subsequently found Hill had proven by a preponderance of the evidence -- more likely than not -- that he was mildly mentally retarded. The judge also found the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard unconstitutional.
The Georgia Supreme Court subsequently overturned Allen in a ruling that was under close scrutiny during Tuesday's arguments.
Judge Frank Hull, joined by a number of her 11th Circuit colleagues, said that the state Supreme Court ruling should stand. In more than 200 years, she noted, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled that a burden-of-proof standard violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Earlier coverage begins with the post, "Georgia's Mental Retardation Standard To Receive Further Review."
The case is Warren Lee Hill, Jr. v. Derrick Schofield. More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez.; related posts, in the mental retardation index.
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