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Federal Appeals Court Rejects Warren Lee Hill’s Petition

April 23rd, 2013

[This story has been updated by a newer story with audio that was heard on WABE-FM 90.1.]

In a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied the habeas corpus petition by mentally disabled Georgia death row inmate Warren Lee Hill, Jr.

The court also vacated the stay of execution that it had ordered for Hill back in February.

The Atlanta-based court ruled against Hill’s request for permission to file a “second or subsequent petition for a writ of habeas corpus.” The court specified that Hill’s justification for the petition, his claim of mental retardation, had already been presented in his first petition for appeal and was thus barred from resubmission.

The ruling, released this morning, also pointed to another major problem with Hill’s petition. As the court wrote in its ruling, “Additionally, Hill’s mental retardation claim challenges only his eligibility for a death sentence, and not whether he is ‘guilty of the underlying offense,’ and thus does not fall within the narrow statutory exception” that would have allowed for a second appeal.

[Link to the text of the complete ruling (PDF): In re: WARREN LEE HILL, JR., Petitioner, Case No. 13-10702]

In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Rosemary Barkett objected to this procedural roadblock, saying “The Supreme Court has said unequivocally that it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to execute a mentally retarded person … There is no question that Georgia will be executing a mentally retarded man because all seven mental health experts who have ever evaluated Hill, both the State’s and Hill’s, now unanimously agree that he is mentally retarded.”

Hill’s attorney, Brian Kammer, cited Judge Barkett’s dissent in his statement after the ruling:

We are deeply disappointed that the 11th Circuit United States Court of Appeals found that procedural barriers prevent them from considering the compelling new evidence in Warren Hill’s case. The new evidence shows that every mental health expert ever to examine him finds that Mr. Hill has mental retardation and he is thus ineligible for execution according to the constitution of the United States.

We came before this court with important new evidence – that three doctors who previously testified on behalf of the state, upon further review of Mr. Hill’s complete records, now conclude that he has mental retardation. The diagnosis of mental retardation is now unanimous among all the doctors who have examined Mr. Hill.

As Judge Barkett notes in her dissent: “The idea that courts are not permitted to acknowledge that a mistake has been made which would bar an execution is quite incredible for a country that not only prides itself on having the quintessential system of justice but attempts to export it to the world as a model of fairness…. [The federal habeas statute] should not be construed to require the unconstitutional execution of a mentally retarded offender who, by presenting evidence that virtually guarantees that he can establish his mental retardation, is able to satisfy even the preposterous burden of proof Georgia demands.”