American Civil Liberties Union

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

Georgia: On Monday, the State of Georgia stands ready to strap Warren Hill to a gurney, place IV lines in his arms, and pump his body with poison until he dies.  Warren Hill has an IQ of 70, and is intellectually disabled (mentally retarded).  That was the finding of a Georgia trial judge who held a hearing and looked at the relevant evidence – applying United States Supreme Court precedent barring execution of the intellectually disabled under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the court ruled that Hill could not be executed.

In Day 3 of the Velez hearing in Brownsville, Texas, I want to take a moment to explain the legal context – the rule of constitutional law – that will entitle Manuel Velez to relief if the judge, the Hon. Elia Cornejo Lopez, credits the facts presented.

The legal journey starts 50 years back with the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright.  There, the court held that the Constitution entitles poor people facing possible imprisonment counsel appointed at the state’s expense.  In later decisions, the court clarified that a poor person’s right to appointed counsel is a right to effective counsel.

"A life in Cameron County [Texas] is worth just the same as a life in other parts of the United States."

This pointed sentence came in Judge Elia Corenjo Lopez's 63-page order this week, in which she recommended that former death-row prisoner and ACLU client Manuel Velez be given a whole new trial.