Julie Deisher at 7:26 AM ET
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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Georgia death row inmate petitions court for stay of execution
Georgia death row inmate petitions court for stay of execution
Julie Deisher at 7:26 AM ET
[JURIST]
Warren Hill, a Georgia death row inmate with an undisputed IQ of 70,
filed motions on Monday for a stay of execution with the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website; motion] and the US Supreme Court [official website; motion]. In February, the Eleventh Circuit and the Court of Appeals of Georgia [official website] issued a stay on Hill's execution
[JURIST report] just minutes before he was scheduled to be executed so
the court could consider whether evidence of his mental retardation was
new and could be a basis for an appeal. However, the Eleventh Circuit lifted the stay
[JURIST report] in April, finding that Hill's claim of mental
retardation was already presented, and that his claim does not address
his actual guilt or innocence, meaning that it cannot be further
reviewed. Hill is now scheduled to be executed [AJC report] on Monday, July 15 at 7PM EST at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.
Hill was sentenced to death for the 1990 murder of a fellow inmate
while serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend in 1986. His
execution has been stayed several times. The Eleventh Circuit granted
the latest stay in February, hours after the Supreme Court denied [JURIST report] Hill's petition for certiorari. Hill's appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court [official website] was denied [JURIST report] earlier that month. Last July the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously granted a stay of execution
[JURIST report] 90 minutes before Hill was scheduled to be executed, in
order to consider the state's new single-dose lethal injection
protocol. In a separate order the court also denied Hill's request to
hear his appeal of a Butts County Superior Court ruling, which held that
Hill had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
[JURIST report] that he is mentally disabled, and that the "beyond a
reasonable doubt" standard itself is constitutional. The US Supreme
Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia [opinion] that the execution of mentally retarded individuals is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment [text].
Julie Deisher at 7:26 AM ET
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Based on increased insight in civilized thinking the statement that no civilized country would and should have the death penalty is fitting!
ReplyDeleteAs well as the statement that every individual killed by an authority is victim of inhuman, uncivilized and brutal actions!
The fact that a country like America, aka the United States of America, allows to have the death penalty on the books as punishment is showing the backwardness of the country and its authorities!
To claim to be the leader of the world, socially, economically, ethically and humanly, and meanwhile have a punishment like the death penalty on the books as being a punishment for a crime is contradicting to the core!
To pretend to bring freedom, peace and human dignity to other countries and meanwhile deny people the fact of life is wrong, stupid and inhuman!
To start wars to overthrow dictators who murder their own people (for whatever reason) and meanwhile having the death penalty as punishment is, to say the least, hypocritical, illogical, and foremost wrong!
The death penalty is a crime against humanity, and should be treated as such, and every authority who or that initiates and issues such penalty should be brought before a court of justice and be sentenced to the heaviest sentence possible....... incarceration for life without parole!
And that includes Judges, Governors, Lawmakers, Members of Congress, Senators, Cabinet members, as well as the President!
My opinion!