The state of Georgia has scheduled the execution of Warren Hill, who sits on death row even though a State Court judge previously found him to be mentally disabled.
A death warrant signed Monday calls for Hill to be put to death by lethal injection during a one-week period that begins at noon July 18. The Department of Corrections is expected to set the date soon.
Hill is on death row for bludgeoning to death fellow inmate Joseph Handspike with a nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, Hill was serving a life sentence at the Lee Correctional Institution for killing his girlfriend.
"Executing Warren Hill, a 52-year-old man whom a court has found to be more likely than not mentally retarded, would be a terrible miscarriage of justice," said Brian Kammer, one of Hill's lawyers. Kammer said he will ask the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant Hill clemency.
In 1988, Georgia became the first state in the nation to ban executions of the mentally disabled. Lawmakers enacted the law in response to the 1986 execution of Jerome Bowden, who had been found to have the mentality of a 12-year-old.
In passing the law, the Legislature required capital defendants to prove "mental retardation" beyond a reasonable doubt, the same standard required of juries to convict someone of a crime. Today, Georgia is the only state in the country that sets such a high burden of proof for such claims.
When the U.S. Supreme Court barred executions of the mentally disabled in 2002, it left it up to the states to set their own guidelines.
Hill's problem is that a State Court judge found Hill to be mentally disabled, but under the lowest legal threshold — by a preponderance of the evidence (or more likely than not).
In 2003, the Georgia Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, reversed the State Court judge's decision and reinstated Hill's death sentence because he had failed to clear the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt threshold.
In November, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled, by a 7-4 vote, that Georgia death-penalty defendants such as Hill must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are mentally disabled to be ineligible for execution.
Judge Frank Hull, writing for the majority, said federal law "mandates that this federal court leave the Georgia Supreme Court decision alone — even if we believe it incorrect or unwise."
Dissenting judges condemned the decision, saying it would lead to mentally disabled inmates being executed. Hill's lawyers appealed that decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided not to hear it.
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