Georgia Man Executed Despite 'Disabled' Claim

A man who killed a fellow inmate has been executed in Georgia despite claims by his lawyers that he was intellectually disabled.

Warren Lee Hill was put to death by injection of the drug pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson.

The 54-year-old was pronounced dead at 7.55pm on Tuesday (00.55am Wednesday UK time).

He declined to make a final statement but did accept an offer to have a prayer read over him by a clergy member.

After reading the execution order, the warden left the room.

Records from previous executions show that the drug generally begins to flow within a minute or two of the warden leaving the room.

Hill kept his head raised, looking out at the witnesses for a couple of minutes and then laid back and took a few deep breaths before becoming still.

He had previously come within hours of execution on three separate occasions - however courts granted temporary reprieves each time.

Hill was sentenced to serve life in prison for the 1986 killing of his 18-year-old girlfriend, who was shot 11 times.

While serving that sentence, he beat fellow inmate Joseph Handspike to death using a nail-studded board in 1990.

A jury convicted Hill of murder the following year and sentenced him to death.

Hill's lawyers argued he should not be executed because of his learning difficulties.

The Supreme Court banned the death penalty for intellectually disabled inmates in 2002, but left it up to individual states to decide who falls into that category.

Georgia has the toughest standard in the US for proving intellectual disability.

It requires capital defendants to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are intellectually disabled in order to avoid execution on those grounds.

The state has consistently said Hill's lawyers failed to meet that burden of proof.

Hill's lawyer Brian Kammer said: "Today, the Court has unconscionably allowed a grotesque miscarriage of justice to occur in Georgia.

"Georgia has been allowed to execute an unquestionably intellectually disabled man, Warren Hill, in direct contravention of the Court's clear precedent prohibiting such cruelty."

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