GA Court Upholds ‘Uniquely High and Onerous’ Burden of Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt of Intellectual Disability to be Declared Ineligible for the Death Penalty [reserved for Mostly Blacks [58%]]

From [HERE] The Georgia Supreme Court has denied a constitutional challenge to the state’s statutory requirement that a capital defendant must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she is intellectually disabled before being declared ineligible for the death penalty.

In an 8-1 ruling issued on June 1, 2021, the Georgia high court affirmed the conviction and death sentence imposed on Rodney Young. Young had argued that requiring a capital defendant to meet the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard — the harshest in the country — created an unacceptable risk that Georgia would execute individuals whose intellectual disability should protect them from capital punishment. 

Three justices issued a concurring opinion disassociating themselves from the reasoning of the lead opinion but agreeing with the outcome. One justice concurred only in the result. Justice Charles J. Bethel dissented.

Young’s lawyer, Brian Stull, from the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, called the Georgia court’s ruling “devastating.” 

In an email to the Associated Press, Stull said that “Georgia’s uniquely high and onerous burden means that people with intellectual disability will be executed.” Stull indicated that Young intended to seek review of the case in the U.S. Supreme Court to “ask it to correct the injustices coming out of Georgia once and for all.”

Since Georgia adopted its high burden of proof in 1988, only one of 379 capitally charged defendants tried before a jury has ever been found to be guilty but intellectually disabled. No Georgia jury has ever found a defendant charged with an intentional killing to be intellectually disabled.