The announcement was made this morning. Warren Hill's attorney Brian Kammer has released this statement:
"I am horrified and outraged by the Board’s decision to deny clemency for Warren Hill, a man found by numerous experts, including the State’s experts, as well as the courts to be mentally disabled. The Board is making the same mistake it made in denying clemency for another mentally retarded inmate, Jerome Bowden, in 1986. This shameful decision violates Georgia’s and our nation’s moral values and renders meaningless state and federal constitutional protections against wrongful execution of persons with mental retardation."
"Parole board denies clemency to inmate found mentally disabled," is Bill Rankin's report for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied clemency to a man whose lawyer says is mentally disabled and should not be executed.
Warren Lee Hill is set to be put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson.
In 1991, a southwest Georgia jury sentenced Hill to die for fatally bludgeoning a fellow prison inmate with a nail-studded, two-by-six wooden board. At the time, Hill was serving a life sentence at a prison in Lee County for killing his 18-year-old girlfriend.
And:
Georgia became the first state in the nation to ban the execution of the mentally disabled, more than a decade before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional nationwide.
But in an ironic twist, and for the first time since Georgia enacted its groundbreaking law in 1988, the state is poised to execute Hill, a man a judge has found to be mentally disabled. Hill's problem is that the judge found him mentally disabled by a preponderance of the evidence — or more likely than not — and Georgia's law requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Hill did not clear that standard of proof.
"Clemency denied for Georgia death row inmate Hill," is the AP report by Kate Brumback. It's via the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has voted to deny clemency to death row inmate Warren Lee Hill, who is facing execution Wednesday.
The board announced its decision Monday after hearing arguments in the case Friday. Hill was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to death for killing a fellow inmate while serving a life sentence for the slaying of his girlfriend.
His lawyer Brian Kammer has argued that Hill is mentally disabled and therefore shouldn't be executed. Kammer said he's "horrified and outraged" by the board's decision.
And:
Kammer had asked the board to commute Hill's sentence to life in prison without parole or to grant him a 90-day stay of execution to give the U.S. Supreme Court time to consider the case. A petition to have Hill's case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court was denied last month, but Kammer has filed a new request with the high court.
Earlier coverage of Warren Hill's case begins at the link.
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.
As I often point out, mental retardation is now generally referred to as a developmental or intellectual disability. Because it has a specific meaning with respect to capital cases, I continue to use the older term.
Comments