Armband Alert: 07/23/12, Hill, GA

  Warren Hill’s poisoning by the government of the state of Georgia remains scheduled for today, 07/23/12.

Please wear a black wrist band today in silent protest of the execution of Mr. Hill, who is scheduled to die for the 1990 murder of Joseph Handspike, a fellow inmate.

It is as unjust to kill Mr. Hill today as it was when Georgia scheduled, then delayed, his execution last week.  The only difference for the new execution is that the state plans 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 today.  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!