Georgia Set to Execute Mentally Disabled Man
Despite pleas from human rights organizations, a mentally retarded Georgia man is set to be executed. 
Georgia will execute 52 year old Warren Hill even though the state has found Hill mentally disabled, and even though Georgia outlawed executing mentally disabled people in 1988.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
A death warrant signed Monday calls for Hill to be put to death by lethal injection. Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens set Hill’s execution for 7 p.m. July 18 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Hill is on death row for bludgeoning to death fellow inmate Joseph Handspike with a nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, Hill was serving a life sentence at the Lee Correctional Institution for killing his girlfriend.
“Executing Warren Hill, a 52-year-old man whom a court has found to be more likely than not mentally retarded, would be a terrible miscarriage of justice,” one of Hill’s lawyers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This has, of course, outraged human rights activists across the country. From RT:
Amnesty International has created a petition to be sent to Albert Murray, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles chair, asking for the state to reconsider the execution. Because Georgia is the only state that requires mental disability to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Amnesty International notes that “Mr. Hill would not likely be facing execution had his crime been committed outside of Georgia.”
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Mmmmmmmm…….?
I do not feel that the mentally ill are understood. It is something that has to be a close reltive that you love and for you to be rich and famous or to be some big politician in order for this to be paid attention to. It is so sad for him and his loved ones. It is also sad for the people that he killed. I only hope that we can find some way to treat that can make these chemicals in the brain normal.
what do you expect from the racists in JoeJah?
There is NO excuse you can give me for THIS, even if he has killed two people. The man sounds seriously messed up and he needs help, not a lethal injection. I’ll say the same for many of the people on Death Row as well. Death Row is simply a place where we warehouse those we don’t understand and don’t care to understand. NOT saying these people are safe to have in our communities, but killing anyone is not the answer to the problem of crime. Finding some other solution is.
That is why I can’t understand why “Blacks” flock to Georgia. They still have the confedrate flag flying in Douglasville. Why hasn’t anyone came to the defense of this brother. All the influential blacks in Georgia. make you think !
Xactly! @ Ms Monica…And if the innocence of Troy wasn’t enough. My dream was to move to Atlanta when I finish my eduation towards earning my degree. I don’t know about this. I may have to readjust my dream goals. This is awful!
This is a very sad situation and unless the federal government and the states do more for the mentally ill, there will be much more tradgedy to come. There is no worse discrimination than that of the mentally ill. If the person is male and of color, the discrimination is even compounded more. As a society, we are letting down our most vunerable population. Families and individuals are crying for help and resources. Living with mental illness is like living in h**l here on earth.