White Georgia judge says Black Man Can't Prove he is Mentally Disabled Beyond a Reasonable Doubt - Execution to Proceed

From [HERE] and [HERE] A judge from Georgia's Towaliga Judicial Circuit ruled Monday that death row inmate Warren Lee Hill has failed to meet the state's requirement to prove intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt as a bar to execution. Hill's lawyers argued Georgia's high standard for proving intellectual disability is inadequate because psychiatric diagnoses are subject to a degree of uncertainty. Hill's lawyers based their argument on a set of US Supreme Court [official website] decisions. First in 2002 in the case of Atkins v. Virginia [opinion, PDF] the Court held "death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal," reasoning that their disability "places them at special risk of wrongful execution." Additionally in May the Supreme Court in Hall v. Florida [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] struck down a Florida law that held the death penalty for criminal defendants whose IQ is greater than 70 violates the Eighth Amendment [text] of the US Constitution, and the court found a defendant whose IQ is close to the 70-point cutoff has the right to present additional testimony of his or her mental disability. Georgia sets a high bar for defendants to prove intellectual disability for death row inmates beyond a reasonable doubt and the state court's interpretation of Georgia law is regarded as the toughest burden of proof in the nation [AP report]. The Georgia standard has repeatedly been upheld by state and federal courts. In Monday's ruling Judge Thomas Wilson declared the court is "procedurally barred" from considering Hill's latest challenge because he failed to present any new evidence to support his petition. [MORE]