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GEORGIA (USA): WARREN HILL EXECUTION STAYED DUE TO LETHAL DRUG LAW
July 15, 2013: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan stayed the execution of Warren Hill, 53, Black, until at least Thursday (July 18) so she could hear more arguments from Hill's lawyers who say the new law is unconstitutional because it shrouds in secrecy a drug used to execute Georgia citizens.
Under the new Lethal Injection Secrecy Law, passed in March, the identity of the suppliers of the sedative pentobarbital that would be given to him in a lethal dose has been deemed a "state secret" in an effort to bypass a growing international boycott of the use of pharmaceuticals in death sentences. The Georgia state courts will now reconsider his case on Thursday.
Should the judges decide that the execution can be put back on schedule, it is possible that by the end of this week Hill will be faced with his 4th brush with the death chamber in the space of a year. Hill was set to be executed using a dose of pentobarbital provided to the state by an unnamed manufacturer. Hill killed a fellow prisoner, Joseph Handspike, in August 1990 by beating him to death. Hill was already serving a life sentence for the 1986 shooting death of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Myra Wright. In addition to the injection issue, Hill's attorneys argue that he should not be executed under Georgia's law that bans capital punishment for mentally disabled inmates. (Sources: Reuters, 15/07/2013)
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