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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Clemency denied for Georgia death row inmate Warren Lee Hill

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Warren Lee Hill
ATLANTA -- The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency to death row inmate Warren Lee Hill.

Hill is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at 7 p.m. He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend in 1985. 

In August 1990, he beat fellow Lee Correctional Institute inmate Joseph Handspike to death with a board embedded with nails.

A jury sentenced him to death for Handspike's murder.

A previous petition for clemency for Hill was also denied in July 2012. A new execution order was issued earlier this month by Lee County Superior Court. 

Attorneys have filed multiple past appeals for Hill, arguing he is mentally handicapped and therefore ineligible for the death penalty.

"The clemency board missed an opportunity to right a grave wrong," Hill's attorney Brian Kammer said Tuesday. Kammer added that his client has "the emotional and cognitive functioning of an 11-year-old boy."

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles said it listened to witness and thoroughly reviewed all information and documents pertaining to the case before denying clemency. 

The latest hearing was granted because the board has changed its composition since its 2012 decision in Hill's case.

Source: 11Alive.com, January 27, 2015

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Location: Georgia, USA
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