Update | By Katie Rucke
Warren Hill Jr.’s scheduled execution last night was halted by Georgia’s Supreme Court about an hour before the execution, but not because of Hill’s mental illness. The judges have decided to delay Hill’s execution until they decide whether or not public hearings are necessary before a state can switch the type of lethal injection it uses. Georgia had been using a three-drug cocktail, but recently changed to a one-drug injection. Hill was to be the first inmate executed with the new drug.
As far as Hill’s appeal regarding his mental illness, all but one Georgia judge have agreed to hear his appeal. The judge who declined says Hill hasn’t proven a mental disability beyond a reasonable doubt.
(MintPress) — The upcoming execution of Georgia inmate Warren Lee Hill, Jr., who says he is mentally retarded, has led to a debate and public outrage over the extent mental illnesses qualifies someone for dispensation from a death penalty sentence.
Hill, 52, was sentenced to life in prison in 1986 for the murder of his girlfriend and was later sentenced to death row after killing his cellmate Joseph Handspike in 1990. Hill’s request for clemency was denied late last week by Georgia’s Board of Pardons. Hill is scheduled to be put to death, Monday, July 23.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the execution of a mentally disabled inmate was in violation of the inmates Eighth Amendment rights stating that they would be free from cruel and unusual punishment. However, the ruling gave power to each state to determine what would be considered a mental disability.
More than half of the states in the U.S. accept the death penalty as a form of punishment for various crimes. As of July 19, a report found 33 states currently use the death penalty, and the remaining 17 use other forms of punishment. It is worth mentioning, however, that a few states that recently became non-death penalty states still have inmates on death row.
In Georgia it is illegal to sentence an inmate with a mental disability with capital punishment, but the defendant must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” they have a mental disability. A judge ruled that Hill’s mental disability was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, for clemency to be approved in most states, mental disability must exist before a person is 18-years-old, they must have sub-average intellectual functioning and the mental illness should be known to the jury and act as a contributing factor during sentencing. Hill scored a 70 on IQ tests, which put him in the range of mild mental retardation, and his request for clemency included statements from two of his former elementary school teachers.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Hill’s teachers said that in elementary school Hill could not read or write at grade level, did not interact with peers and was “virtually non-communicative.” It was also reported that neither of the juries at Hill’s two trials were informed of his learning disabilities or that he had an IQ of 70, but in 2002, a Georgia judge found Hill to be “mentally retarded.”
Hill’s family, along with the United Nations, former President Jimmy Carter and the Human Rights Watch, have asked for the Georgia courts to change its mind about Hill’s execution, begging for a sentence of life in prison without parole, instead of the death penalty. France has also asked the U.S. to stop Hill’s execution and begin the first steps toward a universal moratorium on capital punishment.