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THE SUPREME COURT in the southern US state of Georgia has given a temporary reprieve to a man sentenced to death for murder just two hours ahead of his scheduled execution.
Warren Hill was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 pm (11pm GMT) for killing a fellow inmate.
The 52-year-old African-American, who has spent the last 21 years on death row, reportedly has an IQ of 70, which puts him below the threshold for intellectual disability.
The US Supreme Court ruled against the execution of prisoners with such disabilities in 2002, saying the disability “would run the risk of a wrongful execution.” However, the Court left each state with the authority to determine what constitutes such a disability.
Pentobarbital
Hill was to be the first person in Georgia to be put to death using a single drug, pentobarbital, instead of the previously standard three-drug cocktail.
The state supreme court ruled unanimously to grant a stay of execution, saying it needed to investigate whether a lower court erred in determining that the change in execution protocol was legal under Georgia law.
The court will offer its own ruling on whether the new execution method is legal, which could take weeks.
“Georgia, almost on the eve of the execution, switched to a different method, pretty radically different,” Death Penalty Information Center director Richard Dieter told AFP.
There have been “only a handful of executions with this one drug,” he added, saying “if you want to use it, you need to know a lot more.”
The case also highlights questions over the severity of Georgia’s criteria to define who is intellectually disabled.
While Georgia requires proof of disability “beyond a reasonable doubt,” all 49 other states consider “a preponderance of evidence” enough proof.
Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court had declined to review Hill’s case, but his lawyers have requested they reconsider.
A source familiar with the matter said the Court will hold off on deciding whether to hear an appeal now that the execution has been postponed.
Georgia was the first state to ban the death penalty for people with intellectual disabilities, Dieter said, but because it was first, it created “a very strict standard.”
Last week, a Georgia judge ruled that Hill was intellectually disabled to a lesser degree than the state requires to preclude the death penalty.
Several high profile figures – including former US president Jimmy Carter, as well as the family of Hill’s victim – have called for Georgia to commute Hill’s sentence to life in prison.
France and a UN human rights expert have also called for the execution to be suspended.
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Can’t figure out how no one in the restaurant or bar the Skripals attended supposedly after being poisoned got sick. There are too many questions over this whole incident to believe what english military intelligence put out about Russian involvement. This is the same military intelligence that can’t say for sure the Saudi Royal family had any direct involvement in the killing of Kashoggi in Turkey last year. This is also the same intelligence that asked the Glennane gang to go into a primary school and kill all the kids and teachers.
@Cal Mooney: I see the English were pressing the Germans to restart selling military equipment to the Saudis to support the on going war in Yemen. The english formal review of the war there to date that has seen 48,000 children die from forced famine, found the Saudis are doing nothing wrong. The same english intelligence said Iraq had WMDs. They seem to be able to write reports that suit the sitting PM of the day. Sickening.
@Cal Mooney: Jesus man, get a life
@Cal Mooney: The majority of people in Russia do not trust their government and generally believe is Putin ordered an assassination of Sergei Skripal that was botched by Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Dr. Alexander Miskin of the Russian GRU.
Here is an example, a popular Russian political pundit visits the seedy London hotel the GRU assassins stayed in and Salisbury, showing people how they tried to kill Sergei Skripal. He also shows their claim that they visited Salisbury Cathedral and the old clock was rubbish, he shows the footage of them walking out of Salisbury train station, in the opposite direction to the Cathedral and towards Sergei Skripal’s house, retracing their steps to his house.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbLRAAE7D_4
Here’s another about Colonel Chepiga and Dr. Miskin’s laughable RT interview, on TV rain an independent TV station in Russia.
The joke in Russia is that Colonel Chepiga and Dr. Miskin fled to Australia and asked for political asylum and to live in a house without doorhandles.
@James Wallace: I just saw the headline and I reckoned Cal Mooney’s would be the first comment.
@David Jordan: 2 youtube videos both in Russian, how on earth is anyone supposed to understand them??
Seriously? Youtube videos?
@David Jordan: I can tell you the majority of Irish in the North don’t trust english military intelligence. They know they were involved in the murder of civilians in the North for decades.
@Cal Mooney: If anyone gets the opportunity to see the newly released documentary called ‘Untouched Graves’ you will see how evil english military intelligence are.
@Pixie McMullen: And so the two Putinista zealots appear to defend Mother Russia despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Deny Deny Deny, Obfuscation and Deflection are the orders from Moscow/ St Petersburg.
From the FSB caught planting a bomb in the Moscow Apartment block, Andre Litvinenko, the “Green Men” in Crimea, the fully armed “Tourists” that got Lost, to Salibury, it has been the same. Deny and blame everyone else.
@Cal Mooney: Dublin/Monaghan/Miami showband..and a hell of a lot more.
@David Jordan: There is a few holes in your comment
“The majority of people in Russia do not trust their government” – Any other facts or evidence to back this up? The majority of people the UK, Ireland and US do not trust their governments either? Your point here is null, Russia as a country is no different to any other. How many people trust Trump?
“generally believe is Putin ordered an assassination of Sergei Skripal that was botched by Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Dr. Alexander Miskin of the Russian GRU” – A lot of whataboutary here. Who are the people who GENERALLY believe Putin ordered this. I don’t know anyone who believes this. The only people who have said this is the BBC and SKY news and a few nutters in Westminster who again have no proof. Do you believe everything that Borris Johnson says?
The facts are that the UK had accused Russia before an investigation had even taken place is highly suspicious that this response was a premeditated media attack on Russia before the World Cup.
This is akin to a detective walking into a murder scene and a few minutes later accuses a random suspect of doing it before the investigation has even taken place without any evidence but solely in his own belief that he has done it. The press get on board with the narrative and accuse the suspect also because of the detective’s belief. The narrative keeps getting repeated again and again….. This is the world we live in.
Saddam had WMD’s didn’t he…. oh no he didn’t… But the US and the UK were 100% sure he did. Its a bit late for the millions of dead isn’t it.
@Mick.: You are some clown altogether, If i have a differing opinion to yours, i am a “Putinista”, what does that make you? but a western stooge who supports a lying UK government, the Brits are well capable of lying as has been proven in the past.
your links are to SOMEONES OPINION of what happened, nothing concrete.
There are way too many discrepencies in the whole saga, too many questions unanswered, but you, like the fool you are keeps parroting the official BS, while calling others Putinists, you can`t see the irony in what you do?
@Cal Mooney: “Jesus man, get a life”
yea Cal how dare you think for yourself and not just consume what the rte tell you? You’re supposed to be conditioned to hate the Russians didn’t you know
@Cal Mooney: Will check it out, thanks for sharing.
You might also be interested in “The greatest story Never told” if you like to hear different sides of events (ww2)
@great gael of Eire: “Who are the people who GENERALLY believe Putin ordered this. ”
Russians.
Translate the comments of any Russian video on YT about the attempted Skripal assassination, most Russians do not believes their government’s lies. Do you see the irony? They don’t trust their Putin led government like you don’t trust the UK government…
Here’s an example, this Russian video is analysing the ridiculous interview of Colonel Chepiga and Dr. Mishkin on RT News (I’m referring to the GRU assassins by their real names)…
Here’s a few comments left on the video…
“Им даже стакан воды не поставили на стол,это уже о многом говорит”
“They have not even been given a glass of water on the table; this already speaks volumes”
“Что могут придумать солдаты ??? Которые привыкли не думать, а исполнять приказы.”
“What can soldiers come up with??? Which are accustomed not to think, but to execute orders.”
“Путин подставил не только этих шпионов, он сука всю страну подставил и продолжает подставлять!”
“Putin has not only set up these spies, he has set up the whole country and continues to set up the *****!”
@David Jordan: LOL, You are now counting comments on a youtube video for your assertions,
I know you are a rabid Anti Russian zealot, but even you are clutching at straws with this one
@David Jordan: You are wasting your time. Some of these pro Putin posters are certifiable. There are living in a heavily insulated social media echo chamber. Most of them haven’t interacted with real people in years. Some of the stuff they post is hilarious though.
@CrabaRev: playing the man again Crab?
You are like the quintessential Mushroom, really flourishes when it is kept in the dark and fed a diet of shite
@David Jordan: / Mick, which ever account i am talking to – It`s a bit ironic that today while you are claiming that The Majority of people don`t like the Russian government. This has been released :
Putin’s approval rating reaches new 2019 heights – poll
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has risen to 64.8 percent – the highest so far in 2019 – after his annual address to the Russian parliament.
The Russian president boasts the highest approval rating among the nation’s politicians, while 36.8 percent and 40 percent of Russians approve of the work of the prime minister and the government respectively, according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM).
Even Varadkar or his government can`t get that support
@David Jordan: Good man Dave… 3 YouTube comments are 100% proof that everyone in Russia believes that Putin ordered the hit. jayes….
@Pixie McMullen: Only 64.8% but Russia’s own State funded survey organisation? And only 36.8% and 40% of Russians approve of the work of the prime minister and the government? That’s pretty poor.
Putin used to have an approval rating of almost 90% just a few years ago.
See: Trust in Russia’s Putin falls to 13-year low: state pollster.
“The poll, by the Public Opinion Research Centre, found that trust in Putin had fallen to 33.4 percent, its lowest level since 2006.
Putin’s overall approval rating, which is different from his trust rating, is still high at just over 60 percent.
His approval rating has slipped from its peak of nearly 90 percent amid dismay over falling household incomes and unpopular government moves to raise the retirement age and hike value added tax.”
And here’s another…
“Russia’s trust in its President Vladimir Putin has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, falling more than 33 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by the Russian-state Public Opinion Research Center.
Confidence in Putin’s government fell 33.4 percent last week amid sluggish economic growth, a decline in disposable income, and a deeply unpopular rise in the retirement age.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/poll-shows-russia-trust-putin-falls-time-190122184309853.html
There are a lot of people in a lot of countries who dont trust their governments its not peculiar to russia
@Pixie McMullen: The Irony of your comment is priceless. You have just described the facebook generation with a very old analogy.
Re “playing the man”, There is nothing to play. your comments are just complete tinfoil hat stuff.
I guarantee you don’t have these conversations with real life friends or colleagues (assuming you have any). They would laugh you out of the room.
@CrabaRev: Facebook generation ?? I am in my 50`s, I have been reading the western propaganda about Russia/Soviet Union fr decades, demonised throughout the western world despite NEVER invading Western Europe,
The west blindly following America and the UK`s intrepretation of the facts for years, even though America has been the worlds biggest warmonger and killer of civilians in the last 40 years.
America has gone to war against, destabilised, overthrown more countries than any nation in history, the UK has been complicit in a lot of them.
Yeah, i am the one who is wearing the tinfoil, …ye joke
@Mick.: don’t forget the whataboutism, another common tactic.
@Pixie McMullen: The fact that you are in your 50s makes it even funnier. Ah yes! the imperialist West. Living under the jackboot of prosperity and freedom has been tough for us here in the west. I am sure we would all prefer to live under the control of a mafia style administration like they do in Russia.
I am right about you not having these discussions in real life. Mad as a box of frogs.
Why was a double agent living so close to Porton Down ?
@Martin Sinnott: Why did Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Dr. Alexander Miskin of the Russian GRU arrive in the UK on Friday 1th March and stay in a seedy London hotel, then visit Salisbury twice on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd March, and flow back to Russia on Sunday Evening. Where they vitamin pill salesmen, into fitness, two gay lovers with a special interest in old clocks?
They falsely claimed in an interview on RT that they visited Salisbury Cathedral and its old clock but they were filmed on CCTV walking out of Salisbury train station in the opposite direction to the Cathedral, instead walked up the Wilton road towards Sergei Skripal’s house. They flew back to Russia on Sunday 3rd March, just hours after Sergei and his Daughter Yulia were poisoned.
Here’s a video talking about how ridiculous their interview in RT was (you can turn on translated captions).
@David Jordan: Both posts you have made so far are of someone else`s opinions on what happened, nothing official or concrete in either.
Hyperbolic words like seedy hotel are way off the mark,
It was more a guesthouse, and the pictures of the rooms make it out to be far from seedy.
Lots of people go for short stays Friday to Sunday Evening, it`s called a weekend away.
Here are some pictures of your “seedy Hotel”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6134221/Police-urge-guests-stayed-London-hotel-used-Russian-assassins-contact-them.html
@Pixie McMullen: It is a seedy hotel, here’s video inside the hotel. The photos are from when the hotel first opened, it had deteriorated since…
https://youtu.be/LbLRAAE7D_4?t=984
Here’s a few reviews…
“When booking our one night stay at this hotel I reviewed the hotel and looked at pictures however after staying here and can only say the pictures used must have been from when the hotel first opened our room was on the top floor no lift and accessible by going out of one building and up the fire escape of another and then another 3 flights of stairs the room was in extremely poor condition holes on the walls and dirty.for the price paid of nearly £73 for one night with no breakfast I felt was daylight robbery…”
“So I stayed here on 14.06.2018. I walk up the the big black front door and with 2 buzzers in it was hard to tell which one worked as they both looked broke. I pressed both of them anyway. 5 minutes later someone answered and i was bought into the reception. The smell of damp ( i think) hits you quite badly. Not sure if the walls or the carpets tbh? … I went to my room 201 and i entered. I was like OMG. It was very tiny and yes it had a double bed of which i was only just about able to get around the sides.”
“Horrendous experience – never again”
The room was narrow and tiny and the place was dingy. Guy at the front desk wouldn’t replace towels and pillows when requested because he needed an ‘authorised staff member’ to do this later in the evening – a task that turned out to be just another guy unlocking the back room behind the desk and taking out towels and pillows to give to me.”
“Dingy Dank Derelict
“Arrived and had to ring the bell to get in.
We had a room with shared bathroom. To get to the room we had to go out the back of the hotel and up a metal staircase to the ‘flat’. There was three rooms to the shared bathroom. The bathroom wasnt worth using as not sure id have felt clean after using it!
Our room had a kitchenette with it which had the combi boiler in which also served the shared bathroom, so whenever someone used the hot water we had the noise of the boiler. We could also hear whenever any of the others from the rooms came and went each time as the walls are so thin!”"
@Pixie McMullen:
If you genuinely think the two GRU personnel (aka. ‘supplement salesmen’) were actually visiting Salisbury on a weekend break to see the cathedral spire, decided to stay in London instead of Salisbury because, well just because, couldn’t find the cathedral spire when they got there and accidentally found themselves wandering round a suburban housing estate instead, gave up and returned to London because there was 10mm of slush on the ground, then came all the way back to Salisbury the following day for a second failed attempt to find the cathedral, coincidentally just at the same time as the brits were busy poisoning a Russian spy, you must seriously be in the top 1% most gullible people in Ireland.
@David Jordan: LOL, same video again in Russian, By some bloke who could very well be Russia`s answer to Alex Jones for all i know. You already posted,only this time you fast forwarded to near the end to show the “hotel” – with 15 seconds of them walking into the foyer and that`s it! They go no further, and talk to no one, like they sneaked in and out real quick – Not ONE picture or video of the inside of a room.
IT IS THE SAME VIDEO mate, all you have is innuendo and conspiracy theories and you are trying to pass them off as fact.
Yet you accuse others of spreading false rumours and call them propagandists.
The irony is strong in you
@The Great Unwashed: Funny that there is CCtv evidence of the suspects everywhere, But no cctv of them spraying a door handle at 12 pm on a Sunday where people would have been out and about, shouldn`t it have been done at night??
Plus there is NO evidence of the Skjirpals returning to the house on the day in question before the poisoning
Actually there is next to no CCtv of the Skjirpals Anywhere, where is their timeline on CCtv, Salisbury i am sure is saturated with CCtv cameras owing to it`s proximity to Portland downs.
Where is the Skjirpal video? where is there evidence that they actually returned home to be poisoned.
Inexplicably, no on e seems to be asking these question.
Tons of video on the suspects, none on the “Victims”
@Pixie McMullen:
There’s cctv footage of them walking through the Skripals’ housing estate. Do you expect a cctv camera to be permanently focused on the Skripals’ door handle??
I’d love to hear your explanation of what they were doing there. I know the Russian military have plenty of recent form when it comes to getting ‘lost’ and finding themselves in places they shouldn’t be, but walking through a suburban housing estate whilst looking for a cathedral spire takes the biscuit.
I’m sure there’s plenty of cctv footage of the Skripals themselves, but as they’re not the suspects and there’s little dispute over their movements I don’t really see the need for the authorities to release it.
@The Great Unwashed: Surely they should PROVE that the Skjirpals went back to the house to be poisoned?
where is the video timeline of their day, showing they went home to get infected There IS none this is a very important part of information that is missing, If they had it, you can be DAMN sure it would have been produced,
What`s your thoughts of the first responder to the Skjirpals being the hghest medical nurse in the British army? why wasnt she and her daughter infected when they administered CPR?
Where has the copper who was supposed to have been infected at the house but made a full recovery gone?
He`s fallen off the radar altogether.
too many holes in the whole thing.
@Pixie McMullen:
So enlighten us all Pixie, what exactly were the GRU agents doing there at the time?
(and please don’t embarrass yourself by saying they were on a weekend break to see the cathedral spire).
@The Great Unwashed: Who said they were GRU agents? If you are referring to Bellingcat, that is laughable – where is the actual proof that they are GRU agents?
@Pixie McMullen:
You mean apart from the photos of them appearing in their military units and the associated documents that proved their true identities?
You’re a lost cause.
@The Great Unwashed: Do you still beat your wife? Simple Yes or No will do. Anyone can spin anything. For crying out loud, the Bloody Sunday victims were classified as terrorists for 30 years.
@The Great Unwashed: That`s all the stuff “unearthed” by Bellincat…Have you checked out who Bellingcat is? it`s founder? his roots in the UK military, the funding from the Atlantic Council? a thinktank sponsored by the US UK, and NATO?
And you call me a lost cause…LOL – you are more stupid than you are unwashed and apparently that is a great unwashed
@Pixie McMullen:
So the story gets even better – not only do you believe the nonsense story about a weekend away to see the cathedral spire etc. etc. etc., but you now expect people to believe that each of the Russisn guys captured on cctv just happen to have had a twin brother who served in the military?
Just give it up – you’re embarrassing yourself with your little kremlin-inspired world of parallel reality. Cringeworthy.
@Cal Mooney:
I knew the second half of the tag team wouldn’t be too far away.
@The Great Unwashed:
This is from From Bellingcat – in explanation of the two “GRU agents”
As we wrote in the first part of this investigation. “Alexander Petrov”’s passport file contained a stamp with the marking “Do not provide data”, followed by a cryptic number. The same stamp – and the same number – appeared in “Boshirov”’s dossier.
Following the publication of part 1, Novaya Gazeta hypothesized that the number sequence may be a telephone number that belongs – based on comparing number pattern – to the Russian Ministry of Defense. In addition, at least two reporters were able to call that number and speak to someone confirming this is a Ministry of Defense line.
Bellingcat and the Insider have obtained documents proving that the number on the suspects’ stamps indeed is identical to a telephone number that belongs to the Ministry of Defense, and is located at Khoroshevskoe Chausse – where the Headquarters of the GRU is based
So we are to believe that the numbers printed across their fake passports were actually a Telephone number to Russian intelligence, tre you serious man?
@Pixie McMullen:
A passport *file* is not the same as a passport you moron!
You don’t even understand what you just posted!
I suppose that explains your confusion though (to some extent at least).
Comments closed on the Denis O’Brien article. The Media in Ireland is scared sh&@tless. How can we have a free and independent media with this man in charge?
Put it on Airbnb all the weirdos will stay
It’s on the market for a fiver for some reason
@Fr. Fintan Stack: ideal for the mother in law
Send the clean up bill to Putin.
@Gus Sheridan: Give him a good laugh.
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