桃子视频

ATLANTA 鈥� The Georgia Supreme Court today, upholding the death sentence of Rodney Young, despite his intellectual disability. The 桃子视频 and the Georgia Capital Defender Office represent Mr. Young, whose case was argued to the state Supreme Court in March.

Georgia law, unique in the nation, requires prisoners claiming intellectual disability to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt before they are exempt from the death penalty. No defendant has ever met this burden and successfully proven their intellectual disability.

Brian Stull, senior staff attorney for the 桃子视频Capital Punishment Project, issued the following statement:

鈥淭his decision is devastating for our client, Mr. Young, his family and community, the intellectual disability movement, and the legal team who has worked with our client. The Georgia Supreme Court continued an error today that has plagued Georgia capital prosecutions since 2002 when the U.S. Supreme Court announced that people with intellectual disability could no longer be executed in Atkins v. Virginia. Georgia is the only state in the nation that requires defendants with intellectual disability to prove this disability beyond a reasonable doubt in order to spare their life, as required by the Atkins decision and the Eighth Amendment.

鈥淕eorgia鈥檚 uniquely high and onerous burden means that people with intellectual disability will be executed, just as Warren Hill was executed in 2015, despite every expert who interviewed him affirming his intellectual disability. As four of the Georgia justices recognized, today鈥檚 decision violates the reasoning of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions forbidding states from upholding procedures that create unacceptable risks of executing persons with intellectual disability. We will take Mr. Young鈥檚 case to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask it to correct the injustices coming out of Georgia once and for all. We won鈥檛 stop fighting for Rodney Young.鈥�