"Georgia: Court rules mean intellectually disabled murderer must die," is Scott Martelle's post at the Los Angeles Times Opinion LA blog. Here's the beginning:
Nearly 14 years ago the state of Georgia asked two psychologists and a psychiatrist to evaluate a convicted killer named Warren Lee Hill Jr., who had filed a legal challenge to his death sentence on the grounds that he lacked sufficient intellectual capacity to understand why Georgia wanted him dead.
The psychiatrist, Thomas H. Sachy, who had no background in that kind of evaluation — he worked with brain injuries and seizure disorders — spent an hour with Hill, read some files, then shared his findings with the two psychologists, James Carter and Donald Harris, who together had spent two hours talking with Hill. They all concluded that Hill was malingering, understood what was happening and thus was eligible for execution.
Now all three experts acknowledge in court documents that they were wrong. But Georgia could well execute Hill anyway.
Earlier coverage of Warren Hill's case begins at the link.
Related posts are in the Intellectual Disability category index. You can also jump to news of the Supreme Court ruling in Hall v. Florida. More on Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling banning the execution of those with mental retardation, is via Oyez. Beginning with Hall, the Court reformed its language using the medically-accepted term intellectual disability.
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