July 11
TEXAS----impending executions
Death Watch: 501 and 502; After a short break, Texas resumes executions
Just 4 days before Thanksgiving 2002, John Quintanilla walked into the Action
Amusement Center in Victoria, Texas, wearing a mask and gloves and brandishing
a high-powered rifle. He was there to rob the place, but things went sideways.
When retired law enforcement officer Victor Billings, there with his wife
Linda, tried to intervene, Quintanilla shot him 3 times in the chest, killing
him. On July 16, Quintanilla is set to become the 501st inmate executed in
Texas since 1982.
Quintanilla was picked up on Jan. 14, 2003, on a warrant from another county
for an unrelated robbery. He was read his rights and questioned, first about
the robbery and then, later, when Victoria police showed up, about the
amusement center slaying. Although a Victoria investigator again read
Quintanilla his rights, he failed to tell him that he would be provided an
attorney if he could not afford one. Quintanilla never invoked his right to
counsel and ended up making a statement that connected him to Billings' murder.
He was then charged, convicted, and sentenced to death for the slaying.
On appeal he argued that the statements he made should have been excluded from
evidence because of the failure of the cops to read a portion of the Miranda
warning. Moreover, he's argued that his trial attorneys were ineffective for
failing to present mitigating evidence that might have convinced the jury to
impose a life sentence instead of death. Those claims have been rejected by the
courts. Quintanilla was Mirandized multiple times before the Victoria detective
delivered a subsequent, and faulty, admonition - one that was not required by
law. And he specifically declined to let his lawyers present any mitigating
evidence during the punishment phase of his trial; indeed, he said during a
post-conviction hearing that he wanted the death penalty, if found guilty.
Just 2 days after Quintanilla's scheduled execution, the state is set to
execute Vaughn Ross, who would be the 10th inmate executed this year.
Ross was convicted in September 2002 for the murder of Viola Ross (no relation)
and Douglas Birdsall. The pair was found murdered in Birdsall's car, which was
found abandoned in a ravine in Lubbock. Inside the car, police found glass from
a car window, several .38-caliber shell casings, and the tip of a latex glove;
in an alley just yards from Ross' apartment, police investigating a call of
shots fired found glass, blood, and a shell casing - one that matched those
pulled from Birdsall's car. A day later, Ross accompanied his girlfriend,
Viola's sister, to the police station where he told police he did not get along
with Viola, and had argued with her the night she was murdered. Ross consented
to a search of his apartment, where police found latex gloves and a
bloodstained sweatshirt; the blood matched Birdsall's, according to court
records.
On appeal, Ross argued, in part, that he had received ineffective assistance of
counsel because his trial attorneys had failed to investigate and present
evidence of the criminal history of his former girlfriend, Regina Carlisle,
whom Ross pleaded guilty to assaulting in 1997. Carlisle said Ross had stabbed
her and stolen her car; police found that Carlisle had numerous stab wounds,
including a laceration to her neck that was potentially life-threatening,
according to court records. Ross argued that Carlisle's criminal history might
have served to undermine her credibility. He also argued that his attorneys
failed to present mitigating evidence that might have spared his life. On both
counts the appellate courts disagreed, affirming Ross' conviction and death
sentence.
On July 18, he would be the 502nd inmate put to death in Texas since the death
penalty was reinstituted in 1982.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
*********************
Albert Love trial: "It was like a battlefield"
A Waco man who was shot 6 times while sitting in a car at the Lakewood Villas
apartments said the ambush assault was "like a battlefield."
Deontrae Majors, 23, testified Wednesday in Albert Leslie Love's capital murder
trial that he jumped out of the car, ran through a barrage of gunfire and
somehow escaped death by running to a nearby apartment.
"I don't know how I got up, but somehow I got up and ran," he said, describing
how he was shot in the foot as he left the car. "I had heard gunfire before,
but never before in my life like that."
Love, 26, who prosecutors have alleged was wielding an AK-47-style assault
rifle during the attack, is on trial in the shooting deaths of Tyus Sneed, 17,
and Keenan Hubert, 20, who were in the back seat and died in the car.
Majors and Marion Bible were in the front seat but fled to safety. Both men
were wounded and hospitalized after the attack.
Sneed and Hubert suffered 8 gunshots each.
Prosecutors Michael Jarrett and Greg Davis have told the Williamson County jury
that revenge was a motive in the killings and that Hubert - but none of the
others - was targeted because Love, Rickey Cummings and others thought he
killed their friend, Emuel "Man Man" Bowers III, at Hood Street Park in 2010.
During the 1st 3 days of prosecution testimony, the jury has heard as much, if
not more, about Cummings as they have about Love.
Love's trial was moved to Williamson County because of publicity generated in
Waco last year by Cummings' trial.
Cummings is on death row after his capital murder conviction in the double
murder.
Prosecutors also are seeking the death penalty for Love.
Bible testified Tuesday, telling a similar story of four friends just sitting
in a car at the Spring Street apartment complex while listening to music and
smoking marijuana.
Testimony showed that Sneed, the youngest, had gotten into the car with his
friends just moments before the ambush began.
Before Sneed got in, Majors said, the 3 saw Cummings walk by the car. He
"mean-mugged" them, Majors said, explaining that means glaring menacingly at
them.
Hubert, who was aware that Cummings and the Bowers family were spreading rumors
linking him to Bowers' death, got out and recited a rap lyric to Cummings,
Majors said.
The song, from rapper Pimp C, said, in part, "I know you are strapped, but you
cowards like to play hard. But you really don't want to catch that murder
charge," Majors said.
Moments later, the back window was shot out of the car and Majors said he heard
screams coming from the back seat.
Majors was shot in the left shoulder. As he got out of the car, he was shot in
the foot and fell down, breaking his arm.
He and Bible ran to an apartment and locked themselves in the bathroom, where
they tried to determine where they were hit among all the blood.
"It was like a battlefield, except I didn't have anything to defend myself
with," he said.
Both men were taken to a hospital, where Majors had surgery on his shoulder and
arm.
In other testimony Wednesday, Joye Hudson, a Waco High School classmate of
Love's, said Love, Cummings, Bible and another man were in her Villa Victoria
apartment in January or February 2011.
She said she was in the bedroom when she heard a gunshot in the living room.
After that, she ran them out of the apartment, she said.
Bible testified Tuesday that Love was playing with the gun when it went off,
firing into the kitchen floor.
The night of the Lakewood murders, Hudson said, she learned that Hubert had
been killed.
She spoke to Love's girlfriend and learned that Love was not at home. Both
women tried to call Love, but he didn't answer.
Hudson said Love called her back a couple of hours later but did not say where
he had been.
Prosecution testimony resumes Thursday morning.
Court officials expect the trial to last at least 2 weeks.
(source: Waco Tribune)
CONNECTICUT:
Judge sets death penalty hearing in Conn. killings
A state judge has scheduled a death penalty hearing for a man convicted of
killing 2 adults and a 9-year-old girl in Bridgeport in 2006.
The Connecticut Post reports (http://bit.ly/133bLUd ) Richard Roszkowski of
Trumbull will face a penalty phase in September in Bridgeport Superior Court.
A jury will decide whether Roszkowski should get the death penalty or life in
prison for the shooting deaths of ex-girlfriend Holly Flannery, her daughter
Kylie and Thomas Gaudet.
Roszkowski was convicted and sentenced to death in 2009, but the sentence was
overturned.
His lawyers say there shouldn't be a penalty phase because the state Supreme
Court will be deciding whether the state's repeal of the death penalty for
future crimes last year violates the rights of those who committed murders
before the repeal.
(source: Associated Press)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Pa. Superior Court panel affirms life imprisonment for Mumia Abu Jamal
Convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, who has gained celebrity-like status the
world over since being found guilty of fatally gunning down a Philly police
officer in the early 1980s, has had his life prison sentence affirmed by a
state appellate court panel.
3 judges on the state's Superior Court affirmed on July 9 the judgment of
sentence entered last August by a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge.
That sentence, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, was handed
down on Aug. 14, 2012.
Jamal, also known as Wesley Cook, subsequently filed an appeal.
The case has been winding its way through both the state and federal court
system for decades.
Jamal, who has gained a legion of supporters all over the globe in recent
years, was convicted by a Philadelphia jury of killing city Police Officer
Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981, during a public confrontation.
Jamal was initially sentenced to death for his 1st-degree murder conviction, a
penalty that was upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Former Gov. Tom Ridge signed a writ of execution on June 1, 1995, the record
shows.
From there, Jamal's legal team filed various appeals while their client
remained sitting on death row.
In late 1999, Ridge signed a 2nd death warrant, after which Jamal's attorneys
filed a writ of habeas corpus at the federal court in Philadelphia.
In late 2001, U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn denied all of Jamal's claims
except the one pertaining to his sentencing hearing, with the federal jurist
determining that the instructions to the jury during the penalty phase were
ambiguous.
Lawyers for the commonwealth appealed Yohn's ruling, a move that began another
round of appeals in the decades-long criminal case.
On Oct. 11, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to get involved in the case,
meaning Yohn's ruling would remain in effect.
The commonwealth eventually announced that it would no longer seek to have the
death penalty imposed on Jamal.
It was last August that a state judge from Philadelphia imposed the life
sentence.
Jamal, however, subsequently appealed the decision, challenging the
constitutionality of the imposition of a life sentence without parole, as well
as solitary confinement of inmates who have been sentenced to death.
Jamal essentially argued that his rights were violated because he and his legal
team never received proper notice of the life imprisonment sentence, and that
defense lawyers were not given the opportunity to present information and offer
argument before the resentencing.
In the most recent ruling, the Superior Court judges wrote that contrary to
Jamal's arguments, the trial court did not sentence him "sua sponte," but
rather imposed the sentence in accordance with a federal court directive.
"It is initially noteworthy that, although not procedurally required to do so
given Pennsylvania's optional post-sentence motion practice, Appellant did not
raise any procedural or constitutional deficiency in the re-sentencing
procedure before the trial court," the Superior Court's memorandum states.
The panel also wrote that because Jamal filed a timely post-sentence motion and
the subsequent Superior Court appeal, "he cannot establish that he was
prejudiced by the lack of explanation of these post-sentencing rights."
The panel also determined that Jamal could not establish prejudice in his
argument that his constitutional rights were violated.
"In fact, Appellant has failed to cite any authority to establish that an
infringement on due process and other constitutional rights occurs when a case
is remanded for the imposition of a specific sentence with which the trial
court has no discretion," the Superior Court wrote. "Once again, the majority
of federal cases relied upon by Appellant do not involve resentencing following
remand from an appellate court."
The state appeals judges also shot down Jamal's argument that he has a
constitutional right to make a statement upon resentencing, writing that in a
prior Jamal appeal, the state Supreme Court concluded that no right to
allocution exists in capital cases.
"Although his case is no longer a capital one, Appellant cites no authority
requiring a court to afford a defendant allocution upon remand for the
imposition of a court-mandated sentence," the panel wrote.
The Superior Court judges who participated in the decision were Susan Peikes
Gantman, Cheryl Lynn Allen and William H. Platt.
(source: The Pennsylvania Record)
VIRGINIA----female may face death penalty
Woman charged with murder of toddler
A Woodstock woman stands charged with capital murder in the June 5 death of a
toddler.
A grand jury indicted Nicole Dawn Miller in Shenandoah County Circuit Court on
Wednesday on one count of capital murder involving a child younger than 14
years old. The indictment states that Miller "did willfully, deliberately and
with premeditation kill T.V.," a 20-month old child on June 5.
The maximum penalty in Virginia for a conviction of the Class 1 felony is the
death penalty.
Authorities accuse Miller in court documents of abusing and endangering the
life of the toddler -- the son of her fiancee, Jeremy Alexander Vermillion --
on June 3. The child, identified in the documents as 18 months old, died two
days later at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Miller, 25, of 135 Valley Vista Drive, who appeared in court before Judge
Dennis L. Hupp, remains held without bond in Shenandoah County Jail on
previously filed felony charges of abuse and endangerment of the toddler.
Attorney William B. Allen III represents Miller on the charges filed in
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Hupp asked Miller about her financial situation and determined she qualifies
for court-appointed legal counsel. Virginia code requires the court to appoint
2 attorneys to any defendant charged with a capital offense, Hupp explained to
Miller.
Hupp told Miller he contacted the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission earlier
in the day to find her an attorney certified to represent defendants in capital
cases. Hupp said the attorney he reached declined to take Miller's case because
of a heavy workload.
Hupp continued Miller's case to Wednesday and said he would try to find an
attorney to appoint to represent her.
Miller is scheduled to appear in the lower court Aug. 8. She is charged with
the abuse of a child resulting in serious injuries and willfully or negligently
causing the life of the child to be endangerment. The charges are classified as
Class 4 and 6 felonies respectively.
Woodstock police responded to Miller's apartment for a report of an
unresponsive 18-month-old male, according to a criminal complaint filed in the
lower court with related arrest warrants.
"The child had numerous bruises on his face and body that appeared suspicious,"
the complaint states.
Officers found the child not breathing and rescue workers took to toddler to
Shenandoah Memorial Hospital. At some point along the way the child began to
breathe. At the hospital a doctor "observed the bruises and suspected child
abuse," the complaint states. The doctor also refuted Miller's claim to
officers that the child caused the bruising to himself and said that a child
around the same age would not have been able to inflict the bruising either.
The doctor told the police officer who filed the complaint that the child
"suffered extreme head trauma and internal injury to the pelvic region," the
document states. The child also appeared to have new and old bruising to the
entire face and to both arms to both arms that "resembled straps across the
arms."
The complaint states that Miller advised officers on the scene that she was
engaged to the child's father, Vermillion, who was at work during the time of
the incident. Miller told officers she was at the residence caring for the
toddler and her two biological children. The identities of all juveniles are
redacted in the complaint provided to the Daily.
Miller claimed to officers that her son and the toddler were playing in their
bedroom on a small bed when she left the room to make a bottle for her infant
child. Miller told officers that about 20 minutes later she heard a thump and
then a scream. She returned to the children's bedroom to find the toddler lying
on his back, breathing, with his eyes partially open. Miller then called 911.
Miller told officers she suspected that the toddler fell off the bed or that
her son pushed him, the complaint states. The officer noted that the bed is
approximately 6 inches off the ground. The complaint states that when the
officer asked Miller about the toddler's bruises she claimed the child and her
son "fight all of the time." She told the officer the toddler hit his face on
the toilet and on a nightstand the week prior to the incident.
During an interview with a Department of Social Services worker and the police
officer, Miller said she didn't know about bruises on the child's chest. Miller
claimed the bruising may have occurred when she performed CPR and pushed too
hard. The officer states Miller made no mention of having performed CPR on the
child and, when she contacted 911, told a dispatcher she did not want to
perform CPR.
Authorities arrested and charged Miller with the 2 felonies on June 3.
Vermillion, 25, of the same address, also stands accused of crimes related to
the June 3 incident. Authorities arrested and charged Vermillion with felony
child endangerment. Vermillion remains free on a $1,000 secured bond, according
to records in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. He also is scheduled
to appear in the court on Aug. 8.
A complaint filed in Vermillion's case notes that he has primary custody of the
toddler. In an interview with authorities, Vermillion "admitted seeing the
bruises on the child and assumed the injuries were self-inflicted," the
complaint states. Vermillion admitted to seeing the bruises days before the
June 3 incident.
"The child later died as a result of non accidental trauma at UVA Medical
Center," the complaint with Vermillion's charges states.
(source: North Virginia Daily)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Warren Lee Hill's - and the Supreme Court's - Last Chance
In its 1996 decision in Felker v. Turpin, the U.S. Supreme Court saved Congress
from itself, relying on creative legal reasoning to hold that some of the key
provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) did not
actually raise the serious constitutional questions that they appeared to
present. As Felker held, although Congress had meant to foreclose state and
federal prisoners from filing most "2nd-or-successive" habeas petitions
(including in some cases in which they had an indisputable claim for relief),
that constraint only applied to the lower courts. Appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding, Felker held, Congress had left intact the Supreme Court's
ancient authority to entertain "original" habeas applications in such cases,
i.e., habeas petitions filed initially in the Supreme Court, a practice blessed
by Chief Justice John Marshall as early as 1807. Because review of a prisoner's
constitutional claims remained available in at least 1 judicial forum, Felker
ruled, the AEDPA did not implicate either the prisoner's constitutional right
to judicial review or the role of the federal courts as the ultimate arbiters
of the Constitution.
As should be clear, Felker's reasoning works only if the Supreme Court actually
exercises its original habeas jurisdiction in appropriate cases. Otherwise,
there will be cases in which there is no judicial forum available in which to
adjudicate the legality of the state's taking of liberty and life - the very
condition that Felker held to be constitutionally intolerable.
According to the Supreme Court's rules, its exercise of original jurisdiction
requires "exceptional circumstances warrant[ing] the exercise of the Court's
discretionary powers, and...[a showing that] adequate relief cannot be obtained
in any other form or from any other court." If Felker means what it says, then
the Supreme Court must grant such relief in the pending case of Warren Lee
Hill, Jr. - a Georgia inmate whose execution is currently scheduled for next
Monday evening, July 15, and whose case is the rare one that clearly satisfies
both prongs of the Supreme Court's requirements for such relief.
Certainly the circumstances of Hill's case are exceptional. As one federal
judge put it, "all 7 mental health experts who have ever evaluated Hill...now
unanimously agree that he is mentally retarded." And in 2002, the Supreme Court
held in Atkins v. Virginia that the Eighth Amendment categorically forbids
capital punishment of such individuals. Even in Georgia, therefore, a state
with the most restrictive standard in the nation for proving mental
retardation, Hill appears to have a textbook Atkins claim - and thus the
"exceptional circumstances" that Felker and the Supreme Court's rules
contemplate.
The AEDPA itself is responsible for the unavailability to Hill of relief in any
other forum. It forbids state and federal prisoners who have already tried to
challenge their death sentence in a post-conviction habeas petition and failed
to bring a "2nd-or-successive" suit in the lower federal courts unless they can
show that their claim is based on new factual or legal developments tending to
undermine their conviction. In Hill's case, even if the recently developed
evidence establishing his mental disability is a qualifying new development, it
goes only to his sentence. So, as the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit concluded, the AEDPA denies the lower courts the power to
set aside capital sentences in cases like Hill's - even when the prisoner
appears to be categorically ineligible for the death penalty.
Hill therefore presents the precise situation that Felker contemplated: a
prisoner with an indisputable claim for relief from an unlawful capital
verdict, who is prevented by the AEDPA from presenting that claim to any lower
court. Hill's case forces the Supreme Court to put its money where its mouth
is: If the constitutional right to a forum to challenge unlawful imprisonment
and execution means what Felker said, then the Court must use its original
habeas jurisdiction in the rare case like Hill's where such relief is necessary
to prevent a patently unconstitutional execution. Otherwise, not only will
Georgia execute a man whose capital punishment the Constitution forbids, but
the entire basis for the Supreme Court's decision upholding the AEDPA's
restrictive review scheme will collapse under its own weight.
(source: Stephen I. Vladeck is a professor of law and associate dean for
scholarship at American University Washington College of Law. James Liebman is
the Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law at Columbia University. They are 2 of the
co-authors of an amicus brief filed by law professors with the U.S. Supreme
Court about Hill's case; The National Law Journal)
*********************
Coalition of disability advocates fights to end Georgia death penalty
52-year-old Warren Hill, who experts say has the mental capability of a 6th
grader, is going to be executed Monday night at Georgia Diagnostic and
Classification Prison in Jackson, GA.
Georgia was the 1st state to outlaw the death penalty for people with mental
retardation; however, the defendant must prove it beyond reasonable doubt, the
only state to require such a high standard of proof.
Georgia law requires a series of 3 tests -- an intelligent-quotient test,
adaptive-behavior test and a test during childhood.
A score below 70 indicates mental retardation. Hill scored a 70.
Hill was convicted of shooting his girlfriend 11 times in 1986 and was
sentenced to life in prison. Then in 1990 he was convicted of killing an inmate
John Handspike at the Lee State Prison in South Georgia.
"Often time, people with disabilities have been coerced and do not know right
from and wrong. They are vulnerable people in the community, and I suggest that
we ask should anybody be executed, period," said Eric Jacobson, executive
director of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities.
According to Jacobson, the psychologists and doctors that examined Hill during
the original case said that there was nothing wrong with him because people
with retardation are not able to function in society.
However, those same psychologists and doctors are now saying that Hill has
mental retardation.
"We are asking for a stay of the execution from the Supreme Court so that they
can hear this case. We also need to educate the public because 57 % of
Georgians said that we should not execute persons with intellectual
disabilities, and 74 % said they were unaware of the execution," said Kathy
Keeley, executive director of the All About Developmental Disabilities, which
is an Atlanta-based advocacy that provides family support services, public
policy and advocacy.
There are many activists against Georgia's "beyond reasonable doubt"
requirement. They want to change the law to preponderance of the evidence,
which means that it will be based on evidence that suggest retardation instead
of tests and more easily proved.
Advocates are working at the legislature with state Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna,
who chairs the Non-Civil Judiciary committee, who will have a study session
this fall to look at this issue.
(source: Rome News-Tribune)
************************************
'Mentally retarded' killer denied stay of execution
Without a legal miracle, 2-time killer Warren Lee Hill Jr. will be put to death
next week despite growing evidence that Hill is "mentally retarded" and as such
ineligible for the death penalty.
A federal appeals court in Atlanta on Tuesday denied one of Hill's last legal
options to avoid execution in a Georgia death chamber. Hill's lawyers have
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could grant a stay of execution while
it decides whether or not it will hear the case.
The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case in 2002 that people with mental
retardation require a categorical exemption from the death penalty. According
to Hill's lawyer, every doctor that has examined Hill agrees that Hill is
mentally retarded (the legal term) - including 3 state doctors who more than a
decade ago testified that they didn't feel that Hill met the criteria for
exemption but have since gone on record to contradict their earlier diagnoses.
Brian Kammer, Hill's laywer, said Hill's execution would be a "grotesque
miscarriage of justice" that would render the Eighth Amendment a "mere paper
tiger."
Kammer and advocates say the snag for convicts like Hill, who has an IQ of 70,
is, ironically, written in Georgia's 1988 law that prohibits the execution of
people with intellectual developmental disabilities. The state was the 1st in
the country to pass such a law. The law requires defendants to meet the
strictest standard in the country of proof of mental retardation. The state
requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a standard typically reserved for
prosecutors, not prisoners.
Over the last several months affidavits from the state doctors who originally
diagnosed Hill have been filed by his lawyers, while letters from family,
friends and other experts have poured in. Former President Jimmy Carter has
also come out in support of Hill, saying his death sentence should be commuted
"in light of the decisive assessment of psychiatric experts."
If a stay is not granted, Hill, 45, will be put death on July 15 at 7 p.m. in a
prison about 50 miles south of Atlanta. Hill has been granted 2 previous stays
of execution, including one in February that came just 30 minutes before he was
scheduled to die by lethal injection.
In April, despite new evidence, the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Hill's
claims of mental retardation.
"If all that was required to reassert years later a previously rejected claim
was a change in testimony, every material witness would have the power to upset
every notion of finality by simply changing his testimony," 11th Circuit Judge
Frank Hull wrote in the court's majority opinion.
Hill was convicted of shooting his 18-year-old girlfriend to death in 1986. 4
years later, while serving a life sentence for the slaying, he beat a fellow
inmate to death. He was convicted of the prison murder and sentenced to death.
In 2000, the state Attorney General's office assembled a team of doctors, two
psychiatrists and a psychologist to evaluate Hill to determine if he met the
criteria for mental retardation. In a joint report, doctors James Gary Carter,
Thomas H. Sachy and Donald Harris, indicated that they did not believe Hill was
mentally retarded. But in 3 separate affidavits filed in February, the doctors
describe an unusually rushed evaluation, limited experience and understanding
of the functioning of mildly retarded individuals, and advancements in the
field.
"After careful review and with the acuity only hindsight affords, it is now my
opinion, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, that Mr. Hill's
correct diagnosis is mental retardation," Carter wrote in an affidavit.
"Every doctor who has examined Mr. Hill confirms the diagnosis of mental
retardation," Kammer, Hill's lawyer, told MSNBC. "We're kind of just waiting on
the U.S. Supreme Court now."
For advocates of the intellectually disabled, the case is critical. Other
intellectually disabled prisoners may be sitting on death rows across the
country, some of whom may not have been properly diagnosed or assessed until
they entered the criminal justice system.
"In less than a week, the state of Georgia plans to execute Warren Hill, whom
experts for the state and the defense have unanimously found to be
intellectually disabled," Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American
Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on Wednesday. "Killing Mr. Hill would
be both unconstitutional and unconscionable."
According to a study released by All About Developmental Disabilities, an
advocacy group based in Georgia, 69% of Georgia residents surveyed support
changing the state's death penalty law as it relates to people with mental
disabilities.
Rita Young, director of public policy for the organization, said that while it
is hard to quantify the number of people with intellectual disabilities who've
already been executed, there are about 20 people with such disabilities
currently on Georgia's death row.
If Hill is not granted a stay of execution, "it will only fuel our advocacy
efforts in Georgia," Young said.
"With the Supreme Court it's never over until it's over," Young said. "So we
have time and the legal team has time. I'm very hopeful in the future that
we'll be able to change this minor glitch in the legislation so we can come in
line with what the rest of the country is doing."
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center,
said the Supreme Court in its 2002 ruling prohibiting the execution of those
diagnosed with mental retardation were vague in terms of what defines the
diagnosis and what the standards of proof are. Determining mental retardation
is relatively unscientific, he said.
"It's an ongoing problem that people in the future might be sent to death that
might have this diagnosis," Dieter told MSNBC. "How do they get relief? The
bigger question is when new evidence arises, such as in this case, that this
man has mental retardation, shouldn't that stop the execution process. Georgia
is arguing that all of this is too late, your appeals are done."
Kammer, Hill's lawyer and the executive director of The Georgia Resource
Center, said poor people and those with intellectual disabilities face profound
inequities in the criminal justice system.
"I've just seen it over and over again, that in these capital cases there is a
very troubling lack of resources that are afforded poor defendants, and so
juries are not getting the full picture of the people whose lives they are
holding in their hands," Kammer said. "That's a systematic problem in Georgia
and across the country where the death penalty is imposed."
Hill grew up in an abusive household and attended poor, segregated elementary
schools in Elberton, a rural town in northeast Georgia. He was 1 of 10 children
and his father, Warren Hill Sr., was an alcoholic. The family moved from small
town to small town. The family was often without adequate food or clothing, and
Warren Hill Jr. was hospitalized as a young child for malnutrition. He often
suffered seizures and convulsions, according to an affidavit by Dr. Dan Grant
in 2000. By 8th grade he had tested in the 3rd percentile on standardized
tests.
Later, Hill served in the Navy, achieving the rank of petty officer. State
experts in 2000 testified that they thought Hill was faking his mental
disability, and noted his military promotion.
Kammer said the facts surrounding Hill's crimes are consistent with how someone
with an intellectual disability might respond in high-pressure situations. He
pointed out the killing of the fellow inmate in 1990. Hill was housed on a
dormitory floor in relatively close quarters with about 25 other inmates at Lee
State Prison.
"He couldn't cope," Kammer said. "He was unable to communicate his distress to
the counselors...There was one particular inmate that was giving him trouble.
That was the guy that was killed."
Prosecutors say that Hill beat the inmate, John Handspike, to death with a
nail-studded board.
Kammer said Hill was "extremely anxious" with the prospect of death or a
last-minute stay. "It's not as though he can't understand that he's facing
execution," Kammer said. "I think he just takes it a day at a time."
(source: MSNBC News)
*********************************
ACLU Statement on Georgia Prisoner Warren Hill's Scheduled Execution
American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero today
released the following statement, urging that Warren Hill's scheduled execution
be stayed:
"In less than a week, the state of Georgia plans to execute Warren Hill, whom
experts for the state and the defense have unanimously found to be
intellectually disabled. Killing Mr. Hill would be both unconstitutional and
unconscionable.
"All experts who have evaluated Warren Hill agree that he fits the diagnostic
classification of intellectually disabled, formerly called mentally retarded.
It has been more than a decade since the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v.
Virginia that executing intellectually disabled prisoners violates the 8th
Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court noted that their
disability 'places them at special risk of wrongful execution.'
"This case is highly unusual in that no state expert disputes that Mr. Hill
falls within the definition of intellectual disability. It is thus a
constitutional and moral imperative that Mr. Hill's execution be stayed,
certainly until the Supreme Court and 11th Circuit can consider the petitions
currently before them and issue decisions on the merits.
"The ACLU believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban
against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law
and of equal protection under the law. Executing this indisputably
intellectually disabled man would not only violate our Constitution, but it
would be cruel and unjust beyond reason."
(source: ACLU)
****************************
"(T)he United States government and its Constitution says that people can be
put to death." ---- Jimmy Carter on Sunday, June 23rd, 2013 in an interview
Carter correct on death penalty claim
Former President Jimmy Carter, in preparation for a conference in Atlanta,
recently gave an interview in which he highlighted his opposition to the death
penalty.
"The Carter Center and I personally are very deeply opposed to the death
penalty," he told Time magazine. "But when the United States government and its
Constitution says that people can be put to death, that sets an example of
extreme violence that very few other developed, industrialized nations would
have."
With all of the debate about capital punishment in recent years, PolitiFact
Georgia wondered if the former president was correct about the Constitution and
the death penalty.
Carter, a Democrat, gave the interview in advance of the Mobilizing Faith for
Women conference, which was scheduled from June 27-29 at his Presidential
Center in Atlanta. The conference focused on improving the lives of women
around the world. The Carter Center's website says prior conferences have
helped combat issues such as human trafficking and sexual violence. Carter, a
former Georgia governor, was scheduled as a speaker.
Carter cites the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution for his argument that the
death penalty should be considered unconstitutional, said Deanna Congileo, a
spokeswoman for Carter. There's plenty of debate about what that amendment says
about the Constitution, which we'll visit later in this article. As for whether
the U.S. government says people can be put to death, there's a long history of
federal executions.
There have been 37 federal prisoners executed since 1927, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Prisons. The most notable U.S. execution took place in June 2001,
when Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building
bombing that killed 168 people, was executed by lethal injection in a federal
prison in Indiana. The last federal execution was in 2003.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has authorized several death penalty
prosecutions since he took office in 2009. In 2011, he revised some procedures
on how federal prosecutors can consider death penalty cases.
Now, does the Constitution say people can be put to death? There's healthy
legal debate among scholars and jurists concerning that argument.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says no one can be held for a
capital crime "except by due process of law." Death penalty proponents say that
language confirms its legality. Capital punishment opponents contend the words
"cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" in the Eighth Amendment is an
indictment of the death penalty and its legality.
The state of Georgia has been the genesis for many of the questions concerning
whether the Constitution allows the death penalty, with 2 landmark U.S. Supreme
Court rulings, one occurring when Carter was elected president in 1976.
In the 1972 case, Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court concluded that the
arbitrary application of the death penalty and the disproportionate number of
minorities that were executed made the death penalty "unusual." By declining to
rule that capital punishment was unconstitutional in and of itself, however,
the Supreme Court left the door open for state legislatures to draw more
narrowly construed death penalty statutes.
In 1976, Georgia's newly written death penalty statute was challenged before
the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia. This time, Georgia won. The Supreme
Court ruled the death penalty could be used under careful conditions.
The website ProCon.org highlights the dispute. It contains a quote from former
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan disagreeing with the Gregg v.
Georgia ruling, saying it violated the Eighth Amendment. Brennan later
expressed his moral objections to the death penalty. Next to Brennan's quote on
the website is a quote from the current chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr. In a
2008 ruling, Roberts wrote that a method of execution "cannot be viewed as
probative of the wanton infliction of pain under the Eighth Amendment."
To sum up, Carter claimed the federal government and the U.S. Constitution say
people can be put to death. The U.S. attorney general's office has guidelines
on prosecuting such cases, and the Supreme Court has ruled capital punishment
can be employed under the Constitution, although there is still much discussion
about its interpretation.
We rate Carter's claim True.
(source: politifact.com)
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