Salon.com > warren hill

Stay of execution for mentally ill Georgia man lifted

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:28:00 +0000

In February we noted how Warren Hill, a 53-year-old man with severe learning disabilities, was just 30 minutes away from receiving a lethal injection from the state of Georgia when he learned of the stay of execution from the federal appeals court. As of this week, however, a decision by the 11th circuit court has lifted the stay on Hill's execution. This, despite the fact that all medical specialists who have examined Hill — a death row inmate of 16 years — have now concluded that he is unfit to face the death penalty.

As the Atlantic's Andrew Cohen wrote on the decision to once again see the inmate put to death at the hands of the state of Georgia:

Georgia rushes executions before lethal drugs expire

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:15:00 +0000

The state of Georgia has been swift in trying to overturn a stay of execution ruling in the case of intellectually disabled death row inmate Warren Hill. As Salon noted, Hill was granted a stay of execution earlier this week just 30 minutes before he was scheduled to receive the lethal injection.

According to the Guardian Friday, the state's speedy attempt to see the ruling overturned is no accident -- it is part of "a legal scramble to carry out capital sentences before its supply of lethal injection drugs reaches its expiry date of 1 March." Via the Guardian:

Georgia confirmed to the Guardian that its entire supply of pentobarbital expires on 1 March. The expiration date leaves the state in a quandary: it still has 93 men and one woman on death row, including Hill, but with no obvious means by which to execute them.

Anti-death penalty campaigners are scathing about the unseemly haste with which Georgia appears to rushing to beat the deadline. "This highlights the nastiness of the process that the AG should be racing to kill prisoners ahead of an expiration date," said Sara Totonchi, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Mentally disabled man granted last-minute stay of execution

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:21:00 +0000

Warren Hill, a 53-year-old death row inmate with severe learning disabilities, was just 30 minutes away from receiving a lethal injection from the state of Georgia Tuesday evening when he learned of the stay of execution from the federal appeals court for the 11th circuit.

As Salon noted on Monday, all medical specialists who have examined Hill -- a death row inmate of 16 years -- have now concluded that he is unfit to face the death penalty. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling prohibits executions of "mentally retarded" prisoners as a breach of constitutional protections from cruel and unusual punishment. Hill has nonetheless twice been within hours of scheduled death since 2011 before an appeals court has ordered a stay. Georgia is noted by experts as having a problematically high bar for proving mental unfitness for execution.

The Guardian noted how Hill's case has prompted less public outrage than Georgia's execution in 2011 of Troy Davis -- a man put to death for murder despite the majority of witnesses in his trial recanting their original testimonies: