On April 22, a divid­ed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Warren Hill​’s appeal to halt his exe­cu­tion based on new evi­dence of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. The Court ruled that Hill’s claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty (men­tal retar­da­tion) was pre­sent­ed in an ear­li­er peti­tion and can­not be pre­sent­ed again, despite the new evi­dence. The judges also held that, even if Hill’s claim is a new one, it only chal­lenges his eli­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty, not his under­ly­ing guilt, and is there­fore improp­er in a sec­ond peti­tion. In a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, Judge Rosemary Barkett said, ​“There is no ques­tion that Georgia will be exe­cut­ing a men­tal­ly retard­ed man because all sev­en men­tal health experts who have ever eval­u­at­ed Hill, both the state’s and Hill’s, now unan­i­mous­ly agree that he is men­tal­ly retard­ed.” She also stat­ed, ​“The idea that courts are not per­mit­ted to acknowl­edge that a mis­take has been made which would bar an exe­cu­tion is quite incred­i­ble for a coun­try that not only prides itself on hav­ing the quin­tes­sen­tial sys­tem of jus­tice but attempts to export it to the world as a mod­el of fair­ness.… [The fed­er­al habeas statute] should not be con­strued to require the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al exe­cu­tion of a men­tal­ly retard­ed offend­er who, by pre­sent­ing evi­dence that vir­tu­al­ly guar­an­tees that he can estab­lish his men­tal retar­da­tion, is able to sat­is­fy even the pre­pos­ter­ous bur­den of proof Georgia demands.”

(B. Rankin, ​“Court lifts exe­cu­tion stay, but state out of lethal drugs,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 23, 2013). Read full text of the court’s rul­ing. See Intellectual Disability.

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