NEWS FLASH

Georgia Supreme Court Stays Execution Of Mentally Disabled Man | The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Warren Lee Hill, a mentally disabled man who was scheduled to be executed Monday night at 7 pm. Under two hours before the execution, the state Supreme Court unanimously granted a stay to determine whether the recent change to Georgia’s lethal-injection protocol, which replaces the three drug cocktail with one, violates state law. Hill learned of the stay while in a holding cell, after eating what would have been his final meal. The court will hear Hill’s appeal of a Fulton County judge’s decision issued earlier Monday, but ruled 6-1 against hearing his appeal challenging Georgia’s standards determining the mental capacity of an inmate, and thus the legitimacy of Hill’s execution as a mentally disabled man. While the Supreme Court’s ruling in Atkins v. Virginia deems the execution of a person with mental disability unconstitutional, Georgia’s standards to prove disability are uniquely difficult to meet.