ATLANTA – Lawyers for a Georgia man set to be executed next week released sworn statements Thursday from three doctors who originally testified for the state but who now say they’ve changed their opinions and believe he is mentally disabled.
All three doctors write in affidavits that they changed their diagnoses after reviewing evidence, testimony and documents in the case of Warren Lee Hill. Lawyers for Hill, who is set to be executed Tuesday, have long argued he shouldn’t be executed because he is mentally disabled. State law and a previous U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibit states from executing people who are mentally disabled.
“Having reviewed my earlier evaluation results and the far more extensive materials from the record of this case, I believe that my judgment that Mr. Hill did not meet the criteria for mild mental retardation was in error,” wrote Dr. Thomas Sachy wrote in an affidavit.
Hill’s defense plans to submit the doctors’ statements to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles when it requests a new clemency hearing, as well as to a state court that has previously declined to overturn his death sentence, said lawyer Brian Kammer.
The state has consistently argued that Hill’s defense has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is mentally disabled. Hill’s lawyers have said that burden of proof is virtually impossible to meet. Georgia’s strictest-in-the-nation standard for proving mental disability has repeatedly been upheld by state and federal courts.