Yokamon Hearn (pic­tured) is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas on July 18 despite clear evi­dence of brain dam­age since his ear­ly child­hood. Hearn’s tri­al attor­neys failed to con­duct an ade­quate inves­ti­ga­tion into Hearn’s ear­ly his­to­ry, which would have uncov­ered mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that he was neglect­ed by his par­ents and had a his­to­ry of men­tal health prob­lems. His moth­er’s alco­holism was so severe that she drank to the point of pass­ing out dur­ing her preg­nan­cy with Mr. Hearn. He has been diag­nosed with a dis­abling con­di­tion known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Hearn’s cur­rent attor­neys said there is a strong like­li­hood that one or more jurors would have reached a dif­fer­ent sen­tenc­ing con­clu­sion had they been pre­sent­ed this impor­tant mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Further inter­fer­ing with an ade­quate review of Hearn’s case is Texas’s resis­tance to apply a recent Supreme Court deci­sion regard­ing inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion at both tri­al and appeal. UPDATE: Hearn was exe­cut­ed on July 18.

In Georgia, the State Board of Pardons and Parole denied Warren Hill​’s request to com­mute his death sen­tence on July 16. He, too, is sched­uled to die on July 18. UPDATE: Execution date changed to July 23, as state changes to a sin­gle-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. A recent arti­cle in The Atlantic not­ed the com­mon thread in Hearn’s and Hill’s cas­es. While in prison between the age of 28 and 33, Warren Hill test­ed at a grade lev­el of approx­i­mate­ly 6 – 7, and had an IQ with­in the range of men­tal retar­da­tion. Mr. Hill’s attor­neys described his child­hood: ​“Mr. Hill has suf­fered from neu­ro­log­i­cal impair­ment since birth, man­i­fest­ed in a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to seizures and in men­tal retar­da­tion. During his school years, his teach­ers and fel­low stu­dents regard­ed him as the slow­est stu­dent in class. Because there were no spe­cial edu­ca­tion pro­grams avail­able in the seg­re­gat­ed schools attend­ed by Mr. Hill, his teach­ers opt­ed for ​‘social pro­mo­tion,’ an infor­mal but then-com­mon prac­tice of mov­ing stu­dents on to high­er grades in spite of their inabil­i­ty to mas­ter age-appro­pri­ate work.” Although a state judge agreed that Hill met the cri­te­ria for the diag­no­sis of men­tal retar­da­tion, the Georgia Supreme Court lat­er said Hill failed to prove his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty ​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt.” See Hill’s Motion for a Stay of Execution filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on July 16.

(A. Cohen, ​“A Day in the Life of the Death Penalty: July 18, 2012,” The Atlantic, July 11, 2012). See Intellectual Disability and Mental Illness. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Mental Illness.

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