Georgia Roundup

There are two news reports from the Associated Press in Georgia dealing with capital issues.

"Group aims to change part of Ga. death penalty law," is via WRCB-TV.

An Atlanta-based advocacy group, All About Developmental Disabilities, is launching a campaign aimed at changing part of Georgia's death penalty law.

The group says Georgia requires a person to prove intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt to avoid a death sentence. The group says Georgia is the only state that requires proof at that level. Most states that impose the death penalty have a lower threshold for defendants to prove they are mentally disabled, and some states don't set standards at all.

All About Developmental Disabilities says it plans to distribute thousands of buttons, hold informal gatherings with legislators, and use social media in a campaign that will run through Oct. 15.

The debate in Georgia is especially active due to the case of Warren Hill.  His last execution was stayed over lethal injection issues, but his intellectual disability is a central point in his post-conviction appeals.

Related posts are in the mental retardation category 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 on the website.  More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez.

The Augusta Chronicle posts, "Month set aside to pick jury in Georgia mass slaying," by Russ Bynum of AP.

More than four years after eight people were beaten to death in a mobile home in southeast Georgia, prosecutors and defense attorneys could spend the next month questioning potential jurors for the death penalty trial of the man charged with the slayings.

Attorneys in the capital trial of Guy Heinze Jr. are scheduled to report Monday to the Glynn County courthouse. Superior Court Judge Ste­phen Scarlett has set aside four weeks for narrowing down the jury pool. Final jury selection and the trial are set for Oct. 15.

And:

Jury selection could be prolonged in part because of a Georgia Supreme Court decision from last year
that limited a trial judge’s authority to restrict attorneys’ questions during jury selection.

In November the court overturned the death sentence of Clayton Jerrod Ellington, who was convicted in DeKalb County of killing his wife and their twin 2-year-old sons in 2006. The Supreme Court ruled that the trial judge wrongly prohibited Ellington’s lawyers from asking prospective jurors whether they believed a life sentence was a severe enough punishment for someone convicted of killing a child.

In a court filing, Heinze’s defense lawyers cited the Supreme Court decision in giving notice they plan to ask potential jurors detailed questions about whether the number of victims, the fact that they died from being beaten and other factors might bias them against agreeing to any punishment other than death.

“This case should give the attorneys on both sides, the defense and prosecutors, greater flexibility in the substantive questioning of these jurors. And that’s certainly going to increase the amount of time,” said Michael Mears, a professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta whose legal career includes more than 60 death penalty trials and appeals.

Before the Georgia Supreme Court ruling, attorneys in capital cases could ask potential jurors broadly about whether they favored or opposed the death penalty, Mears said, but trial judges were given wide discretion to prohibit more detailed questions.

Earlier coverage from Georgia begins at the link.