28 June 2010 :

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that Georgia's standards for mental retardation (intellectual disability) is unconstitutional. The Court said that requiring defendants to prove intellectual disability (mental retardation) "beyond a reasonable doubt" violates the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishments. It could also result in the execution of intellectually disabled defendants, which the U.S. Supreme Court barred in 2002 in Atkins v. Virginia "This conception of the reasonable doubt standard, by its very terms, ensures that some, if not many, mentally retarded offenders will be executed in violation of the Eighth Amendment," said the court. The ruling could result in new hearings for 10 death row inmates according to the Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Resource Center. The defendant in the current case is Warren Hill, who was sentenced to death in 1991 despite evidence that he was mentally retarded.