Execution Log – 07/23/12-07/29/12: 07/23,Hill,GA

NOTE: In addition to Warren Hill (see below), there were four other inmates scheduled for execution next week.  Darien Houser, John Koehler and Willie Clayton, all of Pennsylvania, all had their executions stayed to pursue further federal appeals.  John Eley of Ohio received a commutation from Governor Kasich due to his diminished capacity to understand the consequences of his actions.

This log includes information about the 1 execution scheduled for next week, 07/23/12-07/29/12. Here are copies of the e-mails I sent to people in states with scheduled executions asking them to intervene. Please e-mail, phone or fax appeals of your own. You are welcome to cut & paste.

GA       Warren Hill                                scheduled 07/23/12

You can e-mail Governor Nathan Deal at his website: http://gov.georgia.gov/00/email/0,2712,165937316,00.html

other Georgia contacts:

Pardons and Paroles Board

e-dress: Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us

phone:    (512) 406 5852

fax:           (512) 467 0945

Atlanta Journal Constitution

e-dress: letters@ajc.com

phone:    404-526-5151

fax:         404-526-5746

The Augusta Chronicle

e-dress: letters@augustachronicle.com

phone:    706-823-3366

fax:      706-722-7403

I ask you, Governor Deal, to use your political influence with Georgia’s Pardons and Paroles Board to stop Georgia’s execution of Warren Hill.  Mr.

Hill is scheduled to be poisoned by the government of Georgia next Monday, 07/23/12, for the 1990 murder of Joseph Handspike, a fellow inmate.

It is as unjust to kill Mr. Hill next week as it was when Georgia scheduled, then delayed, his execution last week.  The only difference for the new execution is that the state plan to use on him the same poison that dog pounds use to kill thousands of unwanted dogs in the state.  All the legal and humane issue still exist as well.

Georgia is the only state in the United States of America that requires proof of mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt.  Those states that still allow executions, and they are dwindling, require that the mental retardation exception established by the United States Supreme Court be invoked by a ‘preponderance of the evidence’.  This is precisely what the trial court in Mr. Hill’s case determined: that he was mentally retarded by a preponderance of the evidence.  Yet,  in contravention of the laws of our land and of justice itself, Georgia still intends to execute Mr. Hill next week.  Here is what a justice on the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals said:  “we hold that the conclusion reached by the Georgia Supreme Court — that the Eighth Amendment protects only those capital offenders whose retardation is ‘significant enough’ to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt — eviscerates the command of the Eighth Amendment that the mentally retarded shall not be executed.”  Less than a year after executing Troy Davis, who was likely innocent and the subject of a world-wide campaign for clemency, Georgia must not put itself on the wrong side of humanity and the law again!

Former Attorney General of the United States Janet Reno, as well as myriads of scholars, can find no evidence that the death penalty deters capital crimes. In fact, the warden of the famous Sing Sing prison believes that the death penalty exacerbates the violence in his facility by setting an example of cold-blooded killing. Recent studies show that the largest increase in capital crimes is in the state of Texas, the state which executes the most people. As for vengeance, that is the Lord’s, not the government’s.

Please, Governor Deal, help stop this killing of Warren Hill.  If this execution goes forward, look around this country and the world for the black armbands worn, and the church bells tolled, in protest of this injustice.

Thank you.