Death-row inmate Warren Hill scheduled to die on January 27

The neverending saga to save Hill’s life continues

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Death-row inmate Warren Lee Hill will once again face the execution chamber despite continuous attempts to spare his life for much of the last three decades.

Earlier this afternoon, a Lee County judge ordered the Georgia Department of Corrections to execute Hill, who has an IQ of 70, sometime between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3. Hill was initially found guilty in 1986 for murdering his then-girlfriend Myra Wright. He landed on death row four years later after being convicted of killing inmate Joseph Handspike, who was asleep in his prison cell, with a nail-studded two-by-six board.

Hill’s lawyers haven’t contested his guilt. But they have filed continuous legal appeals over the years in hopes of sparing his life. Across the nation, an IQ of 70 or below is typically considered to be the standard for proving intellectual disability. But Georgia, which has the nation’s toughest burden of proof when it comes to determining someone’s mental capacity, hasn’t ruled in Hill’s favor.

Yet Hill has managed to stay alive through multiple stays of execution. The most recent stay came from a Fulton County judge during a legal challenge over the Georgia’s controversial lethal injection secrecy law. The state ultimately won that courtroom fight. But it bought Hill enough time to potentially benefit from the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Hall v. Florida, last May that increased protections for death row inmates trying to avoid execution due to intellectual disability.

Back in October, Towaliga Judicial Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson tossed out Hill’s legal request to claim intellectual disability, a designation that would make him immune from execution, following the Hall v. Florida ruling. But Wilson urged the Georgia Supreme Court to review the case in light of the decision made by the nation’s highest court. Hill’s attorney, Brian Kammer, then filed a request for an appeal with the Georgia Supreme Court.

At that October hearing, Kammer says, the state’s lawyers assured Wilson that the Georgia Supreme Court would take a serious look at the issue. That assurance led Wilson to dismiss Hill’s request, Kammer says.

“What’s really galling about this execution warrant is they’re...seeking out an execution order before the Georgia Supreme Court reviews the case,” Kammer tells CL.

Kammer today responded by filing another motion for a stay of execution with the Georgia Supreme Court. The motion is currently pending. Georgia Supreme Court spokeswoman Jane Hansen tells CL a ruling is expected “any day” on Kammer’s initial request for an appeal. But she did not comment regarding a potential decision for the stay of execution.

Hill’s latest execution order comes at a time when state officials have recently accelerated its execution rate. If killed, Hill would be the third death-row inmate in the last two months to be killed in Georgia. The recent uptick comes on the heels of a year when the lowest number of executions occurred in 20 years. In 2014, corrections officials executed 35 people in seven states, in part due to high-profile botched executions in Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

“It’s extremely troubling that as the rest of the country dramatically slows down the pace of executions, here in Georgia we seem to be moving faster,” Southern Center for Human Rights Executive Director Sara Totonchi tells CL. “...Sometimes I think when we see the end of something coming, we tend to hold on even tighter. The death penalty has been a part of our culture and politics in Georgia. As the nation moves away from it, we seem to be steeped in this draconian tradition.”

According to Totonochi, Georgia officials are currently killing death-row inmates faster that any other point in the last decade. She says that’s likely happened given that, for the first time in years, state officials can hold executions without major legal challenges obstructing the process.

“I’m sure the state sees the writing on the wall that the death penalty is on its way out,” she says.

Lauren Kane, spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, says in a statement that Hill “has concluded his direct appeal proceedings and his state and federal habeas corpus proceedings.” The statement also says that his execution date is set for Jan. 27 — the very first day of the seven-day execution window.