Entries tagged with “William Werkheiser”
Mar 10, 2025
Georgia House of Representatives Unanimously Passes Bill to Ease Threshold to Prove Intellectual Disability Ahead of Capital Trials
On March 4, 2025, the Georgia House of Representatives, in a 172 – 0 vote, unanimously passed HB 123, which would provide pretrial hearings for capital defendants to raise intellectual disability claims and would lower the standard of proof for those claims from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to a “preponderance of evidence,” in line with other the other 26 states that still retain the death penalty. The bill was originally introduced by Republican Representative Bill Werkheiser during Georgia’s…
Feb 12, 2025
Georgia House Considers Bill to Provide Pretrial Hearings to Identify Capital Defendants with Intellectual Disability
For the third consecutive session, the Georgia House of Representatives is reviewing a bill seeking to provide better protections to capital defendants with intellectual disabilities. Currently, the state requires a defendant to prove“beyond a reasonable doubt” that they have an intellectual disability – the only death penalty state to have this unusually high standard. Introduced by a bipartisan group of legislators on January 27, 2025, HB 123 would…