Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles Release

Atlanta, GA – The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has thoroughly reviewed and considered all of the information contained in the second clemency application presented on behalf of Warren Lee Hill.

The Board has denied the request to reconsider its decision of July 16, 2012. The second clemency application on behalf of Warren Lee Hill, requesting his execution be stayed and that his sentence of death be commuted to a sentence of life without parole, is denied.

Associated Press Release

The Georgia Supreme Court has stayed Monday's scheduled execution of a man convicted of killing a fellow prison inmate, turning aside his claim of mental disability in blocking the planned lethal injection on other grounds.

Warren Lee Hill had faced a scheduled 7 p.m. execution. But the high court said it was unanimously staying the execution to consider his appeal challenging Georgia's recent switch to a single-drug execution method.

In a subsequent non-unanimous statement, the court denied Hill's request they review defense arguments that Hill should be spared because he is mentally disabled. The state has previously said Hill's defense lawyers failed to conclusively show a mental disability. Federal law prohibits states from executing the mentally disabled.

Hill was convicted in the Aug. 17, 1990, death of inmate Joseph Handspike.