The Georgia House Tuesday a bill approved to reduce the threshold for a person who is confronted with the death penalty to be considered intellectually disabled, so that they do not qualify for a death judgment.
State representative Bill Werkheiser, a Republican, had earlier Introduced legislation Aimed to make it easier for someone to prove that he is intellectually disabled to prevent the death penalty in the peach state that has one of the most difficult thresholds of the nation to overcome.
That bill was only proposed a few months before Willie James Pye, whose IQ was reportedly low enough to show that he was intellectually disabled, was executed after his conviction in the rape of 1993 and the death of his former girlfriend, Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. Pye’s lawyers claimed that he was intellectually disabled and brain -damaged.
The execution of PYE bothered Werkheiser, whose legislation never had a vote on the committee at the time, but this bill has received more legislative support after the unanimous passed on of the house. Now it goes to the Senate.
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Georgia Gop Rep. Bill Werkheiser said he thinks it is “sitting” that the state “protect those who can’t protect themselves”. (AP)
Georgia became the first state to forbade the death penalty for intellectually disabled people in 1988. The American Supreme Court later followed and ruled in 2002 that the execution of intellectually disabled people violates constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
However, the court admitted that states determine the threshold for a person to be considered intellectually disabled. Georgia requires people to prove intellectual disability without reasonable doubt, making it the only thing with such a high burden of proof.
The bill that was claimed on Tuesday also enables the defendants to provide evidence of intellectual disabilities during a pretrial hearing that would be mandatory if officers agree. If convicted during the process, the defendants can then provide evidence of intellectual disability in a separate process for the same jury.
Defendants who prove to have an intellectual disability would be a lifelong if convicted.
“I believe it is the state to protect the state that cannot protect itself,” said Werkheiser.
In another case, Warren Lee Hill was executed in Georgia in 2015 for killing a colleague -prisoner, even though his lawyers claimed that he had an intellectual disability. In 2002 a judge said that if Georgia would use a lower norm than reasonable doubt, Hill would probably have found intellectually disabled.
The Georgia house unanimously approved a bill to reduce the threshold for a person who is confronted with the death penalty to be considered intellectually disabled, so that they do not qualify for implementation. (AP Photo/Sue Oogrocki, File)
When Georgia’s Supreme Court in 2021 confirmed the death penalty for Rodney Young, the judges discovered that he was unable to prove without reasonable doubt that he was intellectually handicapped, although the then judiciary David Nahmias wrote that he would “embrace legal efforts to reduce the threshold.
Young was sentenced to death in the murder of Gary Jones in 2008, the adult son of his ex-fiancé.
The prosecutors have testified in the committee’s hearings that they do not oppose changing the reasonable doubt standard, but they are against changes in the process process and the addition of a pretial hearing.
“The proposed Bill Cherry-Picks from different states,” said T. Wright Barksdale III, public prosecutor for the Ocmulgee judicial circuit in Central Georgia.
Proponents of the bill claim that if jury members have already heard the details of a horrible crime, they may have difficulty evaluating evaluation of the intellectual disability of the defendant without bias.
Most states give the defendants the opportunity to prove their intellectual disability before the process and have individual processes for determining the fault of a suspect and for determining their intellectual disability.
“Only changing the standards of evidence is insufficient to ensure that Georgia does not continue to execute people with valid claims of intellectual disability,” says Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The judges of Georgia’s Supreme Court discovered that Rodney Young, a man who was sentenced to the death penalty, had not proven without reasonable doubt that he was intellectually disabled and had maintained his death sentence. (Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal Constitution via AP)
Barksdale claims that the proposal would make the process too complicated and prevent the death penalty from being carried out at all.
“Terwijl deze wet is gebouwd, en op basis van mijn ervaring met het uitproberen van kapitaalzaken, zou het ons voor alle doeleinden ons op een punt kraken dat we nooit een echt schot zouden hebben om ooit een doodstraf voor iemand te verkrijgen,” zei Barksdale, “zei Barksdale,” zei Barksdale, “zei Barksdale, en voegde eraan toe dat de wetgevers de doodstraf zouden moeten afbreken als ze dat willen, maar de wetgevers hebben gezegd dat dit It is not intention.
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During two hearings from the committee about this bill, Republican and Democratic legislators did not seem convinced that the procedural changes would make the process too complicated. Death penalty cases, they noticed, has long lasted, including many movements and hearings prior to the process.
“We have the death penalty in this state. I’m not going to debate it,” said Democrat Rep. Esther Panitch, who is also a criminal lawyer, Tuesday. “But if we start measuring the ultimate punishment, it should only be for the worst of the worst, and those we have spent the time to ensure that their debt is understood.”
The Associated Press has contributed to this report.
