Death Row Inmate Seeks Final Hearing, Petitions High Court

Just about 50 miles away from Atlanta, Warren Lee Hill, Jr is incarcerated at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison.

This is where all death row inmates are housed while awaiting execution by lethal injection.

“He’s under death sentence and he’s eligible for an execution warrant at any time,” says Hill’s long time attorney, Brian Kammer.

Last month, the Eleventh U.S Circuit Court of Appeals denied another petition filed on Hill’s behalf and thus vacated the stay of execution ordered in February.

Warren Lee Hill, Jr., his family, advocates and Kammer have been through this waiting time before.

But there’s a reason a death warrant has not been signed.

“Every day that we don’t get an execution warrant is a day I know they don’t have the drugs.”

According to a statement from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the state does not currently have the lethal injection, pentobarbital, in supply.

Meanwhile, Kammer has filed a petition to the United States Supreme Court.

He’s hoping the high court will remand the case to a federal district court for a hearing based on new evidence.

The reason says Kammer is that three doctors have all recanted their original assessment of Hill.

So far no court has allowed any of the doctors to come forth with their testimony.

They agree that Hill, according to Kammer, by the state’s standard is mentally retarded.

“I think that it certainly screams out for at least having some kind of hearing where the doctors can testify. I think that this really requires a court’s intervention.”

If Hill’s petition is granted says WABE legal analyst Page Pate, it would be rare.

“The only way he has the chance of getting another hearing is to raise this slightly different issue of, I have new evidence now even under the standard that Georgia has Mr. Hill does not quality under the death penalty.”

In Georgia, mental retardation must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to avoid the death penalty.