A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Georgia's tough burden of proof required of death-penalty defendants seeking to prove they are mentally disabled and thus not eligible for execution.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision means that Georgia remains the only state in the country that sets the highest barrier for defendants raising such claims to escape execution. The ruling impacts claims being raised by about 10 death-row inmates who have failed to prove their mental disability beyond a reasonable doubt and would have received new hearings had the court struck down Georgia's law.
Judge Frank Hull, writing for the 6-4 majority, noted that when the U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of the mentally disabled in 2002, the high court left it up to individual states to develop the guidelines for determining who is mentally disabled.
Because the Georgia Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold, it is not an issue for the federal courts to decide, Hull said. Because there is no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to the contrary, he added, federal law "mandates that this federal court leave the Georgia Supreme Court decision alone -- even if we believe it incorrect or unwise."
The court issued its ruling in the case involving Warren Hill, who was found by a state court judge to be mentally disabled, but under the lowest legal threshold, not the toughest.
Hill sits on death row for bludgeoning a fellow inmate to death with a nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, he was serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend.
The ruling sparked vigorous dissents from judges who said the heightened burden of proof will mean defendants who are mentally disabled are at risk of being executed.
"This utterly one-sided risk of error is all the more intolerable when the individual right at stake is a question of life or death," Judge Rosemary Barkett wrote.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 22, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment