DEATH ROW--death penalty in America

[HairOfTheDog]

Warren Hill

The NAACP is trying to block Monday's scheduled execution of a Georgia inmate set to die for killing another prisoner.

The state president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Edward DuBose, says Warren Hill is mentally disabled and shouldn't be put to death.

The group held rallies in Albany and other cities on Friday, and it's planning vigils on Monday asking Gov. Nathan Deal to block the execution.

Hill was serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend when he was sentenced to die for the 1990 beating death of a fellow inmate.

The U.S. Supreme Court determined in 2002 executing mentally retarded inmates to be unconstitutional. But in Georgia, intellectual disability must be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt,” one of the strictest standards of its kind in the nation.

Hill's lawyers have long argued that he's mentally disabled and shouldn't be put to death.

Earlier this year, the three experts the state used to prove Hill was competent to stand trial came forward to say they were mistaken. The doctors — two psychiatrists and a psychologist — had previously testified that Hill was faking his mental disabilities. They described their evaluations of Hill more than a decade ago as rush jobs.

The 11^th Circuit granted him a stay in February until the new evidence for Hill’s mental disability could be considered. The news came less than an hour before Hill was to be put to death.

Then, in April, the court decided that Hill’s mental retardation claim was the same it had already rejected, despite the changed opinions of doctors and other mental health experts who now say Hill is incompetent to stand trial.

The state says Hill's mental disability hasn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.