A lucky death row inmate escapes death

A U.S. death row inmate who got out of prison twice again escaped death just before execution. The Fulton County court in the U.S. state of Georgia decided to postpone the execution of Warren Hill that was due 7 a.m. Monday, New York Times reported. It is the third time his execution was postponed within a year.

Hill shot his girlfriend to death in 1986 and was sentenced to life imprisonment, and beat a jail colleague to death while in jail in 1990, thus being sentenced to death.

The court`s decision was made several hours ahead of the scheduled execution time. The court accepted his lawyer Brian Kammer`s raising of issue of execution procedures. Kammer said Georgia bans disclosure of execution procedures and toxic chemicals, adding the state government`s issuance of a warrant that wrote the names or poisons was illegal.

U.S. media rushed to report Hill`s story saying he said good bye to his family and had his last dinner, but the execution was postponed again. His first execution was suspended on July 23, last year, 90 minutes before Hill was scheduled to be executed. Kammer had requested the postponement saying the number of the poison types was changed from three to one.

In February this year, Hill`s intellectual disability issue came to the fore, and he came out of the death chamber 30 minutes before the scheduled execution. Kammer said that Hill`s IQ is 70 and is clearly intellectually disabled, claiming execution has to be stopped according to the federal court`s judgment to ban execution of intellectually disabled.

The U.S. Federal Court ruled in 2002 that it is unconstitutional to issue a death sentence to people with low intellectual level. Yet it left the decision be made by state courts. Georgia state courts will adjust the date of execution after examining the objection made by the attorney by 7 p.m. Thursday.