Warren Lee Hill was convicted of two murders in two separate events. In 1986 he received a life sentence in Georgia for the death of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Myra Wright, in Cobb County in 1985. In August 1990, while he was serving that sentence, a fellow prisoner, Joseph Handspike, died at Lee Correctional Institution in Leesburg. A jury convicted Hill of malice murder in July 1991 and recommended a death sentence.
The second conviction produced one of the longest capital cases in Georgia. For more than two decades, lawyers argued over whether Hill could lawfully be executed, a question that rested on a single feature of Georgia law: the requirement that a defendant prove mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. Georgia was the first state to bar the execution of defendants with that condition, and it was the only state to set the burden of proof at that level. Execution dates in 2012 and 2013 were halted by courts at the last stage. Hill was executed on January 27, 2015.
Little is known of Hill's life before 1985, including his date of birth. A Lee County prosecutor who opposed his claims in 2015 said Hill had held teenage jobs, graduated from high school and served in the Navy, where he reached the rank of petty officer. Those statements were made in the context of the dispute over his mental capacity, and the prosecutor used them to argue that signs of a disability appeared only years into his appeals.
Myra Wright was 18. She was Hill's girlfriend, and she died in Cobb County, Georgia, on May 30, 1985. Hill was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1986. The Supreme Court of Georgia issued its opinion in his appeal, Hill v. State, 256 Ga. 614, on January 15, 1987.
The charge was murder; any other counts, the trial date and the trial court are not known. Hill began serving the life term, and he was serving it in 1990.
On August 17, 1990, a fellow prisoner, Joseph Handspike, died at Lee Correctional Institution in Leesburg, in Lee County. Both men were held there.
On January 22, 1991, a grand jury in the Superior Court of Lee County indicted Hill for malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault. A jury convicted him "as charged" on July 31, 1991. Trial was held in July and August 1991. On August 2, 1991, the jury recommended a sentence of death. The trial court denied his motion for a new trial on June 5, 1992.
Hill did not claim mental retardation at trial. The claim was raised in the state habeas proceedings that began in 1994.
The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the conviction and the death sentence on March 15, 1993, in Hill v. State, 263 Ga. 37, 427 S.E.2d 770, in an opinion by Justice Sears-Collins. The opening lines were brief: "He appeals. We affirm." Reconsideration was denied on March 30, 1993. The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on November 1, 1993.
On April 14, 1994, Hill filed a state habeas corpus petition in Butts County. In 1996 he amended it to allege mental retardation. The claim also rested on an argument that his trial lawyers had been ineffective for failing to investigate and raise the issue.
Georgia had a statute for exactly this question. In 1988 the state barred the execution of defendants found mentally retarded, the first state to do so. Under O.C.G.A. section 17-7-131(c)(3), a defendant could be found "guilty but mentally retarded" if the factfinder "finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged and is mentally retarded." The burden on the defendant was therefore proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The state habeas court first granted a limited writ in 1997, ordering a jury trial on the claim under a preponderance of the evidence standard. The State appealed. In Turpin v. Hill, 269 Ga. 302, decided on February 23, 1998, the Supreme Court of Georgia reversed. It held that the lower standard did not apply to a defendant tried after the statute took effect, and it directed the habeas court to decide the claim itself under the statute's standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Presiding Justice Fletcher agreed with the remand but would have required proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Two justices dissented in part on other grounds, arguing that Hill had defaulted the claim by not raising it earlier.
The psychologist who testified at Hill's sentencing later said his testimony had rested on inadequate information and that the IQ testing he used had produced an inaccurate result. A dissenting opinion noted that the defense's own psychologist at sentencing had testified that Hill was "borderline" and not retarded.
On remand the habeas court held a hearing. In 2000, state experts testified that they believed Hill was faking his condition. On May 16, 2002, the habeas court found that Hill had proved significantly subaverage intellectual functioning but had not proved impairments in adaptive behavior, and that he therefore failed to prove mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. A supplemental order on September 20, 2002 denied his remaining claims.
Meanwhile the US Supreme Court had decided Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, barring the execution of people with intellectual disability and leaving the states to decide how to assess it. On Hill's motion for reconsideration, the habeas court on November 22, 2002 ordered a jury trial on the question under a preponderance standard. The Warden appealed again.
On October 6, 2003, in Head v. Hill, 277 Ga. 255, 587 S.E.2d 613, the Supreme Court of Georgia reversed. It held that "the beyond a reasonable doubt standard may be applied constitutionally to mental retardation claims" and vacated the order for a jury trial. In a cross-appeal, it affirmed the denial of relief on Hill's other grounds. Presiding Justice Sears, joined by Chief Justice Fletcher and Justice Benham, dissented in part, arguing that requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt violated due process. Reconsideration was denied on November 7, 2003.
Georgia judges had found, under the preponderance standard, that Hill met the definition on two occasions, but that finding did not decide the case under Georgia law. Hill's lawyers, led by Brian Kammer of the Georgia Resource Center, said they had proved an IQ of about 70 beyond a reasonable doubt but had proved deficits in adaptive behavior only by a preponderance.
Hill filed a federal habeas petition in the Middle District of Georgia on October 5, 2004. The district court denied relief on November 7, 2007.
On June 18, 2010, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit, in Hill v. Schofield, reversed. The majority, Judges Barkett and Marcus, wrote that "Georgia's requirement that a capital defendant must prove mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt violates the command of Atkins," and that the Georgia Supreme Court's decision was contrary to clearly established federal law. The panel accepted the state habeas court's finding that Hill had proved mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence, and it noted that Georgia was the only state requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Hull dissented.
The full court took the case, and on November 22, 2011, in Hill v. Humphrey, No. 08-15444, the Eleventh Circuit sitting en banc affirmed the denial of habeas relief. Judge Hull wrote the majority opinion. It held that the Georgia Supreme Court's decision in Head v. Hill was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, because Atkins did not specify a burden of proof and left procedural details to the states. Judge Tjoflat concurred only in the judgment, and Judges Barkett, Wilson and Martin dissented. The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 4, 2012.
On July 3, 2012, Judge George M. Peagler Jr. of the Superior Court of Lee County set a seven-day execution window, and the Department of Corrections scheduled the execution for July 23. On July 16, 2012, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied commutation of the death sentence. Before the date arrived, Hill's lawyers asked the US Supreme Court for an emergency stay, arguing that he should not be executed because of his claimed intellectual disability. A nephew of Joseph Handspike signed an affidavit saying the family had never been contacted by the prosecutors and believed that life without parole was the appropriate sentence.
The Supreme Court of Georgia stayed the execution on July 23, 2012, after Hill sued the Board, the Department and the Commissioner in Fulton County Superior Court over the state's execution procedures. The Superior Court had dismissed that suit. On February 4, 2013, in Hill v. Owens, 292 Ga. 380, the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the dismissal, holding that the Board was not required to adopt rules on the subject, and dissolved its stay.
The Lee County Superior Court set a new window on February 5, 2013, with the execution scheduled for February 19. On February 14, three experts who had been used by the State at the 2000 hearing signed affidavits saying they had been mistaken and that Hill met the criteria for mental retardation.
On February 19, 2013, the Board of Pardons and Paroles again declined to commute the sentence, and the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a last appeal. The US Supreme Court declined to issue a stay. The Eleventh Circuit then stayed the execution by a vote of 2 to 1 for at least 30 days, asking the parties to address whether Hill could meet the requirements for a second federal petition. Judges Barkett and Marcus wrote that the experts "now appear to be in agreement" that Hill is mentally retarded, and Judge Hull dissented. The US Supreme Court denied the State's request to lift the stay on February 21.
On April 22, 2013, in In re Hill, 715 F.3d 284, the Eleventh Circuit denied Hill's application for permission to file a second or successive petition and vacated the stay. It gave two reasons. The claim of mental retardation had already been presented in his first petition and was barred by 28 U.S.C. section 2244(b)(1), and the claim challenged only his eligibility for a death sentence, not whether he was "guilty of the underlying offense," so it did not fall within the exception in section 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii).
On July 3, 2013, the Lee County Superior Court set a window running from July 13 to July 20, and the Commissioner of Corrections set the execution for July 15. The Fulton County Superior Court stayed it over a challenge to a state law, effective July 1, 2013, that made information identifying people and entities involved in executions a confidential state secret. On May 19, 2014, in Owens v. Hill, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld that law as constitutional and held that the trial court had erred in granting what was effectively an interlocutory injunction. The US Supreme Court declined review in November 2014.
By then Hill had survived three scheduled executions, each halted by a court. Over those years he drew attention outside Georgia. The European Union, the American Bar Association and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities urged that he be spared, and former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter wrote letters urging against execution. Hill was baptized into the Catholic Church on February 14, 2013, by a deacon who had met with him regularly since the fall of 2012.
On January 16, 2015, the Lee County Superior Court issued a new order setting a seven-day window from January 27 to February 3, and the Commissioner set the execution for January 27 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose membership had changed since 2012, announced on January 21 that it had invited Hill's representatives to meet on Monday, January 26. Hill's lawyer asked the Board to commute the sentence. His lawyers also cited the US Supreme Court's May 2014 ruling in a Florida case, which held that states cannot rely solely on an IQ score to decide ineligibility for execution, and asked the Court to review the case in light of it, arguing that it should invalidate Georgia's standard. Georgia has no fixed IQ benchmark. The Board heard testimony and reviewed his file, and on January 26 it voted to deny clemency. It gave no reasons. Amnesty International noted that the Board's public statement did not mention intellectual disability.
Also on January 26, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit (Judges Hull, Marcus and Martin) decided In re Hill, 777 F.3d 1214, No. 15-10192, on Hill's second counseled application, filed January 15, for permission to file a second or successive petition. It denied his request for a stay, saying that Hill had already challenged Georgia's requirement and was not entitled to a second appeal without new evidence.
On January 27, 2015, the US Supreme Court denied the application for a stay of execution and denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus in In re Warren L. Hill, No. 14-8169. Justices Breyer and Sotomayor said they would have granted a stay.
Warren Lee Hill was executed on Tuesday, January 27, 2015, at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia. He was the second person executed in Georgia in 2015. Amnesty International said the execution violated international law and that all the experts who had assessed him, including those retained by the State, agreed that he had intellectual disability. The State's position throughout was that he had failed to prove his claim to the standard Georgia law required, and that state and federal courts had upheld that standard.
The case turned on a narrow legal point. Georgia law, since 1988, barred the execution of defendants found mentally retarded. It also required the defendant to prove the condition beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof in the law. More than twenty other death-penalty states used a lower standard of proof, a preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence. The state habeas court found in 2002 that Hill had proved the intellectual-functioning element beyond a reasonable doubt and the adaptive-behavior element only by a preponderance. The 2010 panel said the standard "necessarily will result in the deaths of mentally retarded individuals." The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the standard may be applied constitutionally, and the en banc court held that Atkins left the burden of proof to the states.
Proven by final convictions: the murder of Myra Wright, for which Hill received a life sentence in 1986, and the malice murder of Joseph Handspike in 1990, for which a jury convicted him on July 31, 1991 and recommended death on August 2, 1991. No other deaths were charged or attributed to him.
Accounts date the first killing to May 30, 1985, to 1985 without a day, and to 1986, the year of the conviction and life sentence.
Contested in court: whether Hill met Georgia's definition of mental retardation. The state habeas court found in 2002 that he did not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Two state judges found it proved by a preponderance of the evidence. The Lee County prosecutor disputed the claim. The panel of the Eleventh Circuit in 2010 accepted the preponderance finding, and the en banc court in 2011 affirmed on the standard of proof.
Accounts differ on which court stayed the execution of July 23, 2012: the Supreme Court of Georgia or the US Supreme Court.
May 30, 1985: Myra Wright, 18, dies in Cobb County; Hill is later convicted of murder.
1986: Hill is sentenced to life imprisonment.
January 15, 1987: the Supreme Court of Georgia issues its opinion in Hill v. State, 256 Ga. 614.
August 17, 1990: Joseph Handspike, a fellow prisoner, dies at Lee Correctional Institution, Leesburg.
January 22, 1991: indictment for malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.
July 31, 1991: jury verdict of guilty as charged. August 2, 1991: jury recommends death.
June 5, 1992: motion for new trial denied.
March 15, 1993: Supreme Court of Georgia affirms (Hill v. State, 263 Ga. 37). November 1, 1993: US Supreme Court denies certiorari.
April 14, 1994: state habeas petition filed in Butts County. 1996: amended to allege mental retardation.
February 23, 1998: Turpin v. Hill.
May 16, 2002: state habeas court rules on the claim. November 22, 2002: it orders a jury trial under a preponderance standard.
October 6, 2003: Head v. Hill; the beyond a reasonable doubt standard stands.
October 5, 2004: federal habeas petition filed. November 7, 2007: denied.
June 18, 2010: Eleventh Circuit panel reverses (Hill v. Schofield).
November 22, 2011: Eleventh Circuit en banc affirms denial (Hill v. Humphrey). June 4, 2012: certiorari denied.
July 16, 2012: clemency denied. July 23, 2012: execution stayed.
February 4, 2013: Hill v. Owens. February 19, 2013: stay by the Eleventh Circuit. April 22, 2013: In re Hill denies a second petition.
July 15, 2013: execution stayed. May 19, 2014: Owens v. Hill.
January 26, 2015: Board of Pardons and Paroles denies clemency. January 27, 2015: US Supreme Court denies a stay; Hill is executed in Jackson, Georgia.