STORY: "When justices meet Monday morning to outline their fall term, a man's life is at stake," by reporter Martin Clancy, published by USA Today on September 29, 2013.
GIST: "This morning, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will gather in their secluded conference room to outline the court's fall term. One task before them involves a legal Gordian knot, a clash of institutional good intentions. At stake is a man's life. The justices will decide whether to accept the case of Warren Lee Hill, a condemned Georgia inmate who has exhausted appeals to spare him from execution on the grounds of his mental capacity. After two trials, there's no doubt he is a killer. There's also no doubt he is intellectually disabled and should be protected from execution by a 2002 Supreme Court ruling. Unless the Supreme Court acts, Hill may die because federal courts are trying to do a better job. They have tightened appeals access, severely limiting the admission of evidence and claims, in an attempt to weed out frivolous cases. The rules have had undeniably beneficial effects on court caseloads, but unintended and grave consequences in the Hill case.........The school records had still not surfaced at the time of a 2000 post-conviction hearing. Hill's lawyers made a mental "retardation" claim bolstered by the testimony of four mental health professionals who had examined Hill, but three others testified that Hill was not "retarded." Then this year, Hill's defense team unearthed the elementary school records and had them examined by the experts who had testified at the 2000 hearing. The three doubters rethought their conclusions in the light of the test results and "access to better science" in the intervening years. Now the tally was 7 to 0 — unanimous — but not good enough for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. In April, the court ruled that the evidence from the experts might be new, but Hill's claim of "retardation" was not and could not be considered again. Two members of the three-judge panel said their hands were tied, both by legal precedents closing the floodgates on appeals and by federal legislation designed to "ensure a greater degree of finality" in death-penalty convictions. They also delivered this double-whammy: Hill's new evidence "does not establish a miscarriage of justice" because it affects only his sentence, not his guilt or innocence. Only his life, in other words. When the Supreme Court justices meet today, their challenge is to untie this impossible legal tangle. It is a challenge perhaps best expressed by the lone dissenter on the 11th circuit panel, Judge Rosemary Barkett. She wrote, "The idea that courts are not permitted to acknowledge that a mistake has been made which would bar an execution is quite incredible for a country that not only prides itself on having the quintessential system of justice but attempts to export it to the world as a model of fairness.""
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/09/29/warren-hill-supreme-court-disabled-murder-column/2892171/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
