Warren Lee Hill was spared execution Tuesday night in Georgia nearly at the last minute. Hill had already been giving a sedative to prepare for his lethal injection when the federal appeals court in Atlanta halted his execution for at least 30 days by a 2-1 vote.
Hill was sentenced to death for killing Joseph Handspike, an inmate serving a life sentence in the same southwest Georgia prison where Hill was incarcerated. Hill bludgeoned Handspike to death with a nail-studded wooden board as Handspike lay in his bed. Hill was already serving a life term for killing his 18-year old girlfriend, Myra Wright, by shooting her 11 times in 1986. Hill’s death penalty status has attracted international attention as he and those who support him have made claims of mental retardation.
His impending execution on Tuesday prompted calls by disability rights advocates for changes in the way Georgia determines whether an inmate meets the criteria for mental retardation. In 1988, Georgia became the first state to ban executions of the mentally retarded, and the U.S. Supreme Court declared the practice unconstitutional in all states in 2002. However, Georgia still requires inmates to prove their mental retardation “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is the most difficult legal standard to prove. Rita Young, director of public policy for All About Developmental Disabilities, has urged the Legislature to require capital inmates prove their mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence, which equates to a proof of more likely than not, which is already used in more than 20 states. In a hearing in 2000, a state court judge found that Hill proved he was mentally retarded, but only be a preponderance of the evidence and another judge made a similar ruling. These rulings bringing to light that Hill would be saved from execution in quite a few other states.
In their opinion granting Hill a “conditional” stay of execution, Judges Rosemary Barkett and Stanley Marcus wrote, “All of the experts – both the state’s and (Hill’s) – now appear to be in agreement that Hill is in fact mentally retarded.” Judge Frank Hull dissented, writing “there is a wealth of ‘reliable and unbiased evidence’ in the voluminous case that shows Hill is not mentally retarded.”
The state parole board had declined to commute his capital sentence hours before he was scheduled for lethal injection and the Georgia Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. Even the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay. All of this may indicate that his chances of entirely avoiding execution are slim.
At the same time the federal appeals court issued its stay in Hill’s case, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued its own saying it needed more time to consider a separate challenge to Georgia’s lethal injection procedure.
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