Hill, who is nobody's poster boy for innocence, received the death penalty for killing a fellow inmate while imprisoned for killing his girlfriend. He's also clinically retarded, meaning that he has an IQ of 70, and nobody disputes it. But in Georgia, that's not good enough to prove retardation.
As described by Andrew Cohen in his Atlantic article describing the executions scheduled for the week ahead (no reason to read the part about Yokamon Hearn, as he was executed last Wednesday), Hill just wasn't retarded enough:
An extensive evidentiary hearing was held. Even the state agreed that Hill met the "IQ criterion for the diagnosis of mental retardation." Where the parties diverged, however, was on the issue of whether Hill's cognitive failings were accompanied by what law and science call "impairments in adaptive functioning."
But the court noted instead that Hill had exhibited a "consistent work ethic" and had "managed well enough, in a 'functionally academic manner' to handle financial transactions ... while simultaneously sending monies to his family and contemporaneously maintaining his personal needs." Hill even passed a military entrance exam. The court ruled that while Hill was demonstrably retarded, he had nonetheless not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was retarded enough to avoid execution.
The distinction comes from a peculiarity in Georgia's burden of proof, where the defendant is required to not only prove he's retarded, but to do so beyond a reasonable doubt. While Warren Hill was unquestionably retarded, it was merely by a preponderance of the evidence. Close, but not good enough.
Georgia is the only state in the nation which requires the "reasonable doubt" standard in these cases -- and the state supreme court proudly defended its standard. The majority wrote:
In view of the lack of national consensus as to which mentally impaired persons are constitutionally entitled to an exemption from death sentences, we conclude that the Georgia General Assembly, the first legislative body to create such an exemption, was originally and now remains within constitutional bounds in establishing a procedure for considering alleged mental retardation that limits the exemption to those whose mental deficiencies are significant enough to be provable beyond a reasonable doubt.
What this means isn't exactly clear. How exactly does a person prove that he's retarded beyond a reasonable doubt when the criterion is so wiggly as to suggest that anything less than constant drooling opens the possibility that maybe he's not that retarded? No matter, as the Georgia Supreme Court concluded. It's Hill's problem to solve, even though nobody really doubts that he's retarded. From the 4-3 dissent:
Despite the federal ban on executing the mentally retarded, Georgia's statute, and the majority decision upholding it, do not prohibit the state from executing mentally retarded people. To the contrary, the State may still execute people who are in all probability mentally retarded. The State may execute people who are more than likely mentally retarded. The State may even execute people who are almost certainly mentally retarded. Only if a mentally retarded person succeeds in proving their retardation beyond a reasonable doubt will his or her execution be halted.
One might wonder how exactly the theory behind the Rule of Lenity, that statutory ambiguity is resolved in favor of the defendant, since the Georgia statute shifting the burden to the defendant to prove retardation beyond a reasonable doubt suffers from the same infirmity as the burden at trial. It's a really cool sounding standard, but so vague and ephemeral as to allow whatever outcome a person wants in even a moderately close case. Essentially, the ability to walk without tripping seems sufficient to find a prisoner death-ready.
Granted, Hill's crimes (like Hearn's before him) aren't likely to make proponents of the death penalty feel particularly badly about society's loss. But like Hearn, the parameters of the rules about who gets executed are tested by those who have done terrible things, rather than only the wrongly convicted or murderers for whom we have an affinity.
The Supreme Court rightly held that we do not execute retarded people in America. And, as the dissent wrote, Hill is "almost certainly mentally retarded." Even that doesn't seem to adequately sum it up, as there is no question that he is mentally retarded, with the only question being whether he has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that mentally retarded enough.
That it's necessary to parse the details to this extent, where the slightest of distinctions are argued more on a rhetorical than factual basis, in order to explain away the obvious and put the mark of death on a defendant's head is where capital punishment goes off the rails, even for those who aren't at all concerned that it's part of a seriously inadequate system.
The divided Georgia Supreme Court concluded that the proof failed to meet a burden that itself goes beyond the burden found anywhere else in the United States. The court's decision prevailed by one vote, based on a standard that would allow for whatever decision met the judges' personal sensibilities. Even the prevailing judges saw this case as sitting on a razor's edge. No person should be executed when it cannot be said with absolute certainty and clarity that they do not fully satisfy the statutory criteria, even if you believe that people should be executed at all.
Most ironic is that Warren Hill passed the military entrance exam. Perhaps his conduct would have earned him a medal, if for his work ethic if not his use of weapons. That's how thin the line can be. And yet he's not sufficiently retarded to be spared execution in Georgia. Maybe no one is sufficiently retarded in Georgia.
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2012/07/21/retarded-in-georgia.aspx?ref=rss
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