Georgia State authorities denied a personal pardon to a man, suffering intellectual disabilities and having ‘the mind of an 11-year-old boy’, and executed him on Wednesday despite social protests and efforts of his lawyers to cancel the punishment, AP reported on Wednesday. "Today, the Court has unconscionably allowed a grotesque miscarriage of justice to occur in Georgia," Brian Kammer, the lawyer of the man, said cited by the news agency. "Georgia has been allowed to execute an unquestionably intellectually disabled man, Warren Hill, in direct contravention of the Court's clear precedent prohibiting such cruelty," he added. Kammer said that his client had a mind of a small boy and that his execution was an act of cruelty. “He is a young boy in a man’s body,” the lawyer said, cited by LA Times. “An 11-year-old child can write competently, even speak articulately. But we don’t expect them to have the reasoning capability, the judgment or the understanding of the consequences of action that we expect of a mature adult.” Warren Hill, 54, was charged with murdering his girlfriend in 1986 and killing his inmate in 1990 while serving his sentence, according to CNN. In 1991, he was sentenced to death, though his lawyers insisted on his mental disability. 5,000 people have signed a petition demanding the cancellation of Hill’s capital punishment. Lawyers, doctors as well as senior EU and US figures such as former President Jimmy Carter called for his mercy. A few days before Hill’s execution, Hill’s lawyers provided law-enforcement services with new medical statements from three doctors, all of which confirmed Hills’ intellectual disability. However, the court took in account the previous results of a medical examination in 2000, when Hill’s mental disease was not confirmed, and rejected the pardon appeal. Source URL |
