"Judge rules against inmate scheduled to be executed today," is the latest update from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It's by Bill Rankin.
A Fulton County judge on Monday ruled against an inmate who is scheduled to be executed tonight, saying Georgia's recent changes to its lethal-injection protocol do not violate state law.
Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall, however, said he would like the Georgia Supreme Court to issue a substantive decision as to whether the changes violate the state Administrative Procedure Act. The law requires a 30-day public comment period before changes are implemented. Hill's attorneys contend the change in protocol needs to go through such procedures.
Warren Hill is on death row for killing a fellow inmate in a southwest Georgia prison. He is scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m.
Hill is also challenging the state's law that determines whether an inmate is mentally disabled — and thus ineligible to be executed. Two state judges — both hearing appeals filed by Hill years after his 1991 trial — have found that Hill is more likely than not to be mentally disabled. But Hill has not cleared the state's stringent legal threshold that requires capital defendants to prove their mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. Georgia's law is the only one of its kind in the country.
There is extensive news coverage and commentary.
"Last Chance to Stop Tonight's Execution," from Courthouse News Service.
"Georgia inmate's impending execution stirs controversy," by Melanie Eversley at USA Today.
"US state of Georgia to execute mentally handicapped man," by AFP.
"'Cruel' Georgia Set To Execute Mentally Handicapped Warren Hill," by Ewan Palmer For International Business Times.
Among the prominent commentaries:
"Supreme Court: Protect Intellectually Disabled GA Man From Execution," is by Margaret Nygren at Huffington Post. She's the Executive Director and CEO, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
My organization, the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), is the oldest professional society concerned with intellectual and developmental disabilities. For decades AAIDD has provided clinicians, courts and government agencies with authoritative definitions and explanations of intellectual disability and protocols for appropriate treatment and support systems.
In 1988, Georgia became the first state to prohibit the execution of people with intellectual disability. Georgia inspired a national movement to protect the intellectually disabled from execution, culminating in Atkins v. Virginia, a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision which prohibited the execution of people with intellectual disability as unconstitutional. In the Atkins decision, the Supreme Court specifically endorsed AAIDD's clinical definition of what was known as "mental retardation," recognizing that people with intellectual disability are both inherently less culpable and are also at special risk of wrongful execution because of the difficulty faced by courts and attorneys in identifying the syndrome based on superficial indicators of "normality."
Warren Hill has been found to have an intellectual disability by numerous experts as well as a Georgia state court judge. This finding has been unchallenged by opposing counsel on appeal or by reviewing courts. Standardized test scores from his elementary and middle schools placed Mr. Hill in the bottom 2-3% of his peers in academic ability. Mr. Hill's elementary, middle and high school teachers testified that he demonstrated clear evidence of intellectual disability throughout his schooling and was the beneficiary of "social promotion" because of the lack of special education programs at his schools. However, despite the overwhelming evidence of his disability, the state of Georgia's standard for proving intellectual disability -- the strictest in the nation -- has left Mr. Hill unprotected despite a Supreme Court ruling which prohibits executing the intellectually disabled.
In Georgia, the state which led the nation in protecting those with intellectual disability from capital punishment, defendants must prove that they are intellectually disabled "beyond a reasonable doubt," the strongest standard of proof in the law. As Dr. Robert Latzman, a clinical psychologist at Georgia State University, stated, the problem is that lawyers often look for black and white answers, adding, "we don't do that in the psychology world. We don't play in yes and no's, we play in statistics and probability. That makes 'beyond a reasonable doubt' an impossible standard to attain."
Legal experts have noted that the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Atkins v. Virginia has been undermined by varying state standards for proving intellectual disability.
"Warren Hill: 10 reasons why Georgia should not execute him," is by Ed Pilkington for the Guardian.
Earlier coverage of Warren Hill's case begins at the link.
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. Related posts, in the mental retardation index.
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