The People's Record

An ongoing chronicle of communities of resistance around the world: anti-racism, anti-zionism, anti-imperialism, the Arab Spring, anti-austerity protests in Greece and across Europe, student movements all around the world, the Occupy Movement, anti-capitalist movements, anarchist movements, socialist movements, leftist communities and other relevant international news.

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Georgia man with intellectual disability scheduled to be put to death on TuesdayFebruary 18, 2013 A Georgia prison inmate found by doctors to have a mild intellectual disability is scheduled to receive lethal injection on Tuesday, despite constitutional protections that exist to prohibit the execution of the mentally disabled. More than 20 years after being convicted of murdering a fellow inmate while already behind bars, Warren Hill, 52, is slated to be killed on Tuesday. Now with only hours left to live, attorneys for Mr. Hill and human rights activists are demanding a last-minute intervention. Back in 1991, the judge overseeing the murder case against Mr. Hill said the defendant was “mentally retarded” by a“preponderance of the evidence,” contradicting testimonies from physicians who examined the inmate. Decades later, though, those doctors who examined Hill say they acted in too much of a hurry to reach that conclusion and today agree that the inmate is unfit for execution. “The whole process, including my evaluation of Mr. Hill, was rushed … my previous conclusions about Mr Hill’s mental health status were unreliable because of my lack of experience at the time,” one of the doctors, neuropsychiatrist Thomas Sachy, now claims. All three physicians that gave their original evaluation 12 years ago say today that their decision was rushed and ill-conceived, reports The Guardian. Additionally, the jurors involved in his murder trial and the family of the man he was convicted of killing while in prison has stated that they would not like to see Hill put to death. “Several jurors who sat on Warren’s original jury have since stated under oath that they would have sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole had that been an option at the time of his 1991 trial, particularly after learning of the evidence of his intellectual disability and history of childhood abuse,” Amnesty International reported last year. Brian Kammer, a Georgia lawyer who has worked close to the case, tells the Guardian that with the latest testimonies in the case, “There is now no daylight between any of the experts who have evaluated Mr Hill – in an innocence context this would now be a clear case for exoneration.” Mr. Hill was expected to be killed last July, but a last minute hold was granted to reassess the method of execution only an hour-and-a-half before he was scheduled to die. Now just a few months later, the state of Georgia is once again readying to make the kill. One day before he is scheduled to die, Judge Thomas Wilson said on Monday that he would not consider a request for habeas relief, essentially leaving just the US Supreme Court as the only available option to save him from execution. Attorneys for Mr. Hill had asked Judge Wilson to see testimonies from the doctors who initially examined the inmate, but according to the Associated Press, he has refused it on the basis that the request for reconsideration is procedurally barred and that the new evidence doesn’t establish a miscarriage of justice. Attorneys for Mr. Hill have submitted a petition with the US Supreme Court, asking for intervention due to the 2002 federal ruling that found executing a person considered “mentally disabled” was in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution: the provision that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In lieu of federal law, however, individual states can determine their own definition of “mental disability.” Eric Jacobsen, a columnist for Huffington Post, says that the state-wide requirement for what is and isn’t mental disability in Georgia is “a powerful legal concept that does not translate into the way individuals are assessed to determine if they have an intellectual disability. So, while Georgia never contested Mr. Hill’s intellectual disability or I.Q. of 70, he was not able to meet the burden of proof.” In 2002, the Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals said they couldn’t touch the case because national law ”mandates that this federal court leave the Georgia Supreme Court decision alone — even if we believe it incorrect or unwise.” Source Note: To address people with disabilities with dignity & respect, I’ve changed all the “retarded” references to people first language - referring to the person and then their disability. Calling someone a retard or saying something is retarded is ableist, derogatory, offensive & exclusive language.  Many people use “mentally retarded” because it’s believed to be the official terminology for someone with a disability, but as of 2010, the phrase was removed from federal health, education & labor policies in what is known as Rosa’s Law.  So… stop saying “retarded.” Ableism is discrimination. Thanks.

Georgia man with intellectual disability scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday
February 18, 2013

A Georgia prison inmate found by doctors to have a mild intellectual disability is scheduled to receive lethal injection on Tuesday, despite constitutional protections that exist to prohibit the execution of the mentally disabled.

More than 20 years after being convicted of murdering a fellow inmate while already behind bars, Warren Hill, 52, is slated to be killed on Tuesday. Now with only hours left to live, attorneys for Mr. Hill and human rights activists are demanding a last-minute intervention.

Back in 1991, the judge overseeing the murder case against Mr. Hill said the defendant was “mentally retarded” by a“preponderance of the evidence,” contradicting testimonies from physicians who examined the inmate. Decades later, though, those doctors who examined Hill say they acted in too much of a hurry to reach that conclusion and today agree that the inmate is unfit for execution.

“The whole process, including my evaluation of Mr. Hill, was rushed … my previous conclusions about Mr Hill’s mental health status were unreliable because of my lack of experience at the time,” one of the doctors, neuropsychiatrist Thomas Sachy, now claims.

All three physicians that gave their original evaluation 12 years ago say today that their decision was rushed and ill-conceived, reports The Guardian. Additionally, the jurors involved in his murder trial and the family of the man he was convicted of killing while in prison has stated that they would not like to see Hill put to death.

“Several jurors who sat on Warren’s original jury have since stated under oath that they would have sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole had that been an option at the time of his 1991 trial, particularly after learning of the evidence of his intellectual disability and history of childhood abuse,” Amnesty International reported last year.

Brian Kammer, a Georgia lawyer who has worked close to the case, tells the Guardian that with the latest testimonies in the case, “There is now no daylight between any of the experts who have evaluated Mr Hill – in an innocence context this would now be a clear case for exoneration.”

Mr. Hill was expected to be killed last July, but a last minute hold was granted to reassess the method of execution only an hour-and-a-half before he was scheduled to die. Now just a few months later, the state of Georgia is once again readying to make the kill.

One day before he is scheduled to die, Judge Thomas Wilson said on Monday that he would not consider a request for habeas relief, essentially leaving just the US Supreme Court as the only available option to save him from execution. Attorneys for Mr. Hill had asked Judge Wilson to see testimonies from the doctors who initially examined the inmate, but according to the Associated Press, he has refused it on the basis that the request for reconsideration is procedurally barred and that the new evidence doesn’t establish a miscarriage of justice.

Attorneys for Mr. Hill have submitted a petition with the US Supreme Court, asking for intervention due to the 2002 federal ruling that found executing a person considered “mentally disabled” was in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution: the provision that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In lieu of federal law, however, individual states can determine their own definition of “mental disability.”

Eric Jacobsen, a columnist for Huffington Post, says that the state-wide requirement for what is and isn’t mental disability in Georgia is “a powerful legal concept that does not translate into the way individuals are assessed to determine if they have an intellectual disability. So, while Georgia never contested Mr. Hill’s intellectual disability or I.Q. of 70, he was not able to meet the burden of proof.”

In 2002, the Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals said they couldn’t touch the case because national law ”mandates that this federal court leave the Georgia Supreme Court decision alone — even if we believe it incorrect or unwise.”

Source

Note: To address people with disabilities with dignity & respect, I’ve changed all the “retarded” references to people first language - referring to the person and then their disability.

Calling someone a retard or saying something is retarded is ableist, derogatory, offensive & exclusive language. 

Many people use “mentally retarded” because it’s believed to be the official terminology for someone with a disability, but as of 2010, the phrase was removed from federal health, education & labor policies in what is known as Rosa’s Law. 

So… stop saying “retarded.” Ableism is discrimination. Thanks.

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Texas to unconstitutionally execute mentally disabled man next weekAugust 04, 2012 It is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. So Marvin Wilson, a Texas inmate scheduled to be executed next Tuesday, should not constitutionally face the death penalty. As a court-appointed psychologist’s report details, Wilson is mentally retarded: [Wilson] required repeated instruction for doing even simple things, such as cutting the grass. Mr. Kelly also noted that Marvin Wilson had significant reading problems. He had a difficult time keeping up when playing football. He could never understand how to run even simple plays. Mr. Kelly also noted that Mr. Wilson seemed to have a difficult time dressing himself properly. He could not color coordinate and sometimes wore mismatched socks. He. also would wear his belt so tightly that it would “almost cut of his circulation”. Frequently his shirt was buttoned incorrectly. Some of these problems continued even into adolescence. Mr. Kelly indicated that when Mr. Wilson was younger he tried to get some simple jobs involving things like sweeping the floors at a local store. However, he would lose the jobs quickly because he wasn’t “fast enough”. Mr. Kelly specifically recalled Mr. Wilson working at Wizard Car Wash. Even though he was assigned the simple duty of working at the drying station, he apparently was fired after a few days because of his inability to do the job. Mr. Kelly also noted that Mr. Wilson exhibited difficulty doing any kind of task that required logic or thinking. He never learned how to count money correctly until he was older… . It is my opinion that the WAIS -III is the most valid indicator of adult intelligence now in current usage. On the WAIS-III Mr. Wilson earned a Verbal I.Q. of 61, a Performance I.Q. of 68, and the Full Scale I.Q. of 61. This places him within the mildly retarded range of intellectual ability and below the 1st percentile. Texas hopes to exploit a potential loophole in the Supreme Court’s decision declaring executions of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in order to move forward with this execution. Although the Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia references the clinical definition of mental retardation — a person with an IQ of 70 or less who demonstrated “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning” before the age of 18 is generally considered mentally retarded — it also left “to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon [their] execution of sentences.” So Texas has designed its own, narrow definition of mental retardation that bears little resemblance to the one used by scientists and clinicians. A petition is currently pending in the Supreme Court seeking to close this loophole and save Wilson’s life. This kind of zealous appetite for the death penalty is nothing new in Texas. One third of all modern U.S. executions take place in the Lone Star State. Source

Texas to unconstitutionally execute mentally disabled man next week
August 04, 2012

It is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. So Marvin Wilson, a Texas inmate scheduled to be executed next Tuesday, should not constitutionally face the death penalty. As a court-appointed psychologist’s report details, Wilson is mentally retarded:

[Wilson] required repeated instruction for doing even simple things, such as cutting the grass. Mr. Kelly also noted that Marvin Wilson had significant reading problems. He had a difficult time keeping up when playing football. He could never understand how to run even simple plays. Mr. Kelly also noted that Mr. Wilson seemed to have a difficult time dressing himself properly. He could not color coordinate and sometimes wore mismatched socks. He. also would wear his belt so tightly that it would “almost cut of his circulation”. Frequently his shirt was buttoned incorrectly. Some of these problems continued even into adolescence. Mr. Kelly indicated that when Mr. Wilson was younger he tried to get some simple jobs involving things like sweeping the floors at a local store. However, he would lose the jobs quickly because he wasn’t “fast enough”. Mr. Kelly specifically recalled Mr. Wilson working at Wizard Car Wash. Even though he was assigned the simple duty of working at the drying station, he apparently was fired after a few days because of his inability to do the job. Mr. Kelly also noted that Mr. Wilson exhibited difficulty doing any kind of task that required logic or thinking. He never learned how to count money correctly until he was older… .

It is my opinion that the WAIS -III is the most valid indicator of adult intelligence now in current usage. On the WAIS-III Mr. Wilson earned a Verbal I.Q. of 61, a Performance I.Q. of 68, and the Full Scale I.Q. of 61. This places him within the mildly retarded range of intellectual ability and below the 1st percentile.

Texas hopes to exploit a potential loophole in the Supreme Court’s decision declaring executions of the mentally retarded unconstitutional in order to move forward with this execution. Although the Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia references the clinical definition of mental retardation — a person with an IQ of 70 or less who demonstrated “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning” before the age of 18 is generally considered mentally retarded — it also left “to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon [their] execution of sentences.” So Texas has designed its own, narrow definition of mental retardation that bears little resemblance to the one used by scientists and clinicians. A petition is currently pending in the Supreme Court seeking to close this loophole and save Wilson’s life.

This kind of zealous appetite for the death penalty is nothing new in Texas. One third of all modern U.S. executions take place in the Lone Star State.

Source

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