"Ga. to Review Tough Death Penalty Provision," is Kate Brumback's AP report, via ABC News. Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning:
The state that was the first to pass a law prohibiting the execution of mentally disabled death row inmates is revisiting a requirement for defendants to prove the disability beyond a reasonable doubt — the strictest burden of proof in the nation.
A state House committee is holding an out-of-session meeting Thursday to seek input from the public. Other states that impose the death penalty have a lower threshold for proving mental disability, and some don't set standards at all.
Just because lawmakers are holding a meeting does not mean changes to the law will be proposed, and the review absolutely is not a first step toward abolishing Georgia's death penalty, said State Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, chairman of the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.
Georgia's law is the strictest in the U.S. even though the state was also the first, in 1988, to pass a law prohibiting the execution of mentally disabled death row inmates. The U.S. Supreme Court followed suit in 2002, ruling the execution of mentally disabled offenders is unconstitutional.
The Georgia law's toughest-in-the-nation status compels lawmakers to review it, Golick said.
"When you're an outlier, you really ought not to stick your head in the sand," he said. "You need to go ahead and take a good, hard look at what you're doing, why you're doing it, weigh the pros and cons of a change and act accordingly or not."
Thursday's meeting comes against the backdrop of the case of Warren Lee Hill, who was sentenced to die for the 1990 beating death of fellow inmate Joseph Handspike, who was bludgeoned with a nail-studded board as he slept. At the time, Hill was already serving a life sentence for the 1986 slaying of his girlfriend, Myra Wright, who was shot 11 times.
Hill's lawyers have long maintained he is mentally disabled and therefore shouldn't be executed. The state has consistently argued that his lawyers have failed to prove his mental disability beyond a reasonable doubt.
And:
A coalition of groups that advocate for people with developmental disabilities pushed for the upcoming legislative committee meeting and has been working to get Georgia's standard of proof changed to a preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Hill's case has drawn national attention and has shone a spotlight on Georgia's tough standard, they say.
The process has taken an enormous amount of education, said Kathy Keeley, executive director of All About Developmental Disabilities. Rather than opposition to or support for the measure she's pushing, she's mostly encountered a lack of awareness about what the state's law says, she said.
The groups are hoping to not only express their views at the meeting, but also to hear from others to get a broader perspective, Keeley said. The changes should be relatively simple and very narrow in scope, targeting only the burden of proof for death penalty defendants, she said.
Last month, the Athens Banner-Herald published Walter Jones' column, "Push for change in state's mental-capacity standard under way."
Georgia was the first state in the nation to prohibit the execution of a mentally retarded person, but advocates for the disabled say the state is now lagging behind American society and needs to change its law.These advocates are in the midst of a month-long campaign to raise awareness and mobilize public opinion and legislators. They also prefer the term “intellectual disabilities” over the connotations associated with “retarded.” Of course, they risk that folks won’t know what they’re talking about if they don’t use common terminology.
Georgia’s reliance on the death penalty has made it the source of many precedent-setting cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. Those decisions prompted multiple changes in how capital-punishment cases are handled here and across the country.
However, it wasn’t an appellate court decision that prompted Peach State legislators to end executions of people with limited mental functioning. It was outcry over the 1986 electrocution of a Columbus man for a double murder during a burglary.
Earlier coverage of Warren Hill's case begins at the link. Related posts are in the mental retardation category index.
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