Every doctor that ever examined him found Warren Hill to be intellectually disabled. His attorney said he had the “emotional and cognitive functioning of an 11 year old boy.” And on Tuesday, he was executed, despite the protest of the victim’s family and thousands of others.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to execute someone with intellectual disabilities (formerly referred to as mental retardation). But in Georgia, where Hill was executed, people on death row must prove these disabilities “beyond a reasonable doubt” – a nearly impossible standard to meet in a case like this.
A powerful and diverse group of voices opposed the execution, including the family of Hill’s victim, jurors from Hill’s original trial, local and national advocacy groups for the intellectually disabled, the European Union, and over 5,000 individuals who submitted individual letters to the Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons.
But the Board refused to act.
“The clemency board missed an opportunity to right a grave wrong,” said Hill’s attorney Brian Kammer.
Shortly before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay.
“Today, the Court has unconscionably allowed a grotesque miscarriage of justice to occur in Georgia,” said Kammer. “Georgia has been allowed to execute an unquestionably intellectually disabled man…in direct contravention of the Court’s clear precedent prohibiting such cruelty…[T]he memory of Mr. Hill’s illegal execution will live on as a moral stain on the people of this State and on the courts that allowed this to happen.”
Earlier in January, Georgia carried out another controversial execution in the case of Andrew Brannan, a decorated Vietnam veteran with diagnosed Bipolar Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
