The Atlantic posts, "How Georgia Just Spared The Life of Man It Desperately Wants To Kill," by Andrew Cohen.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Georgia has been trying desperately for decades to execute Warren Hill, a convicted murderer who long ago was sentenced to death for a gruesome crime. But just when it looked like state officials would get their wish, just when it looked like the state and federal courts had rejected all of the substantive and procedural arguments Hill's attorneys could gin up, just when it looked like state sovereignty would prevail over the Eighth Amendment, Georgia blew it.
The state blew it because in its zeal to execute Hill, in its desire to keep the "machinery of death" cranking in the Peachtree State, it enacted this past spring a wholly unnecessary (and patently unconstitutional) "state-secret" law that sought to keep vital information about capital procedures from the public--and the state's judiciary. Georgia thereby failed to abide by the governing principle of legal argument: quit while you are ahead.
It was this brand new law--designed to protect the people and corporations that manufacture the controversial (and not always safe) drugs used in the state's lethal injections--that a state court judge on Thursday found to raise serious constitutional questions under the First Amendment and Eighth Amendment. The judge asked the obvious question: How can the executive branch constitutionally conspire with the legislative branch to block the judiciary from considering all relevant components of a planned execution?
And:
For years now I have been writing about how the death penalty in America is slowly losing popular support because of the arbitrary and capricious manner in which it is carried out. For years now I have been chronicling instances where state officials are so ardent in their zeal to execute people that they lose sight of the larger commands of constitutional law. This case is just the latest, and most potent, example of this lamentable trend.
"Secrecy and the Death Penalty," is Jesse Wegman's post at the New York Times Taking Note blog.
Warren Hill murdered two people, his girlfriend and then an inmate in the prison where he was serving a life sentence for that murder. He was sentenced to death for the second murder. Even if you believe the death penalty is warranted in Mr. Hill’s case, you must admit to some discomfort with the cowardly means by which Georgia is attempting to carry out this most solemn and significant of all state actions — undermining a Supreme Court ruling, and hiding under the shroud of legally sanctioned secrecy to do it.
Also, this from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bill Rankin in, "Hill’s execution will not be carried out tonight," as reported Friday evening:
The state may also need to get a new supply of pentobarbital to carry out Hill’s execution if it cannot set another execution date in the coming weeks. Its current supply, which the Department of Corrections got from a compounding pharmacy, expires on Aug. 8, according to court records.
Warren Hill's attorney, Brian Kammer, issued this statement Friday evening after the Georgia Attorney General's Office announced it would not appeal the stay of execution that day. Here's the complete text:
“We are deeply relieved that Warren Hill will not be executed tonight in order for the courts to more thoughtfully deliberate Mr. Hill’s mental retardation claim and the extreme secrecy surrounding Georgia’s lethal injection law.”
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 on the website.
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