1) Background

Robert Karl Hicks, 47-year-old white male, has been on death row for 15 years. The Spalding County Superior Court has ordered the execution to take place at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 30, 2004.

Prior to Mr. Hicks’ trial, the judge refused to grant funds for a defense psychiatric expert (despite months of repeated requests and no dispute that psychiatric issues were a critical issue in the case) until the eve of trial, and therefore obtained an expert, rendered virtually useless to the defense. At trial the expert retained did, however, opine that Mr. Hicks showed signs of organic brain damage and required further assessment by a qualified neurologist to confirm the diagnosis. Thereafter, the judge refused the defense’s immediate request for time to complete the ongoing evaluation and to conduct a follow-up neurological evaluation.

The prosecution dismantled the defense relying upon the testimony of their own expert who falsely claimed that a “board certified” neurologist had conducted the appropriate neurological evaluation and concluded with certainty that Mr. Hicks was not brain damaged. That testimony was false in that no such evaluation had been done; no neurologist (board certified or otherwise) had assessed Mr. Hicks; and, Mr. Hicks is in fact brain damaged as proven in unchallenged, unrebutted post-trial testimony.

In short, the jury sentenced Mr. Hicks to death with the false belief that his violent conduct was the product of an “anti-social” personality, rather than the accurate understanding that it resulted from organic brain damage that was medically provable and morally exonerating in terms of Mr. Hicks’ personal responsibility for his condition and its impact on his conduct.

The United Nations Commission for Human Rights has repeatedly passed resolutions calling for an end to the use of the death penalty against anyone with any form of mental disorder. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally. While 112 countries are abolitionist in law or practice, the USA has put 878 prisoners to death since resuming executions in 1977, including 58 this year.

By Harry R. Weber, Associated Press | June 29, 2004

ATLANTA -- Georgia's parole board denied clemency yesterday for a death row inmate who argued that the prosecutor improperly suggested at trial that the Ten Commandments do not recognize insanity as a defense for murder.

Parole board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said the defense arguments were not compelling enough to stop the execution of Robert Karl Hicks, 47.

Barring any successful last-minute appeals, Hicks will be put to death tomorrow for killing 28-year-old Toni Strickland Rivers in 1985.

At trial, Hicks had pleaded insanity, and a defense psychiatrist testified that Hicks had a disorder that rendered him unable to control his impulses.

In asking for clemency or at least a 90-day stay, Hicks's lawyers said jurors followed the prosecutor's instructions to apply divine law, and spent part of their deliberations in group prayer.

The defense lawyers said prosecutor David Fowler told jurors that the Ten Commandments make no provision for mental illness.

''Does it say, `Thou shalt not kill, and be held accountable only if you know what you're doing?' No, it doesn't say that," the lawyers quoted the prosecutor as saying.

Fowler dismissed the defense arguments. ''Obviously, when people are in desperate straits, they take desperate measures," he said.

Defense lawyers August Siemon and Robert McGlasson did not return several phone calls seeking comment on the parole board decision.

The execution would be Georgia's first this year.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

The Spalding County Superior Court has ordered the execution of convicted murderer Mr. Hicks Karl Hicks, age 47. The Court ordered the Department to carry out the execution between noon on June 29, 2004 and ending seven days later at noon on July 6, 2004.

The execution is scheduled to take place at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 30, 2004.

Hicks was sentenced to death in January, 1986 for the July, 1985 kidnapping, rape and murder of 28-year-old Toni Strickland Rivers. On July 13, 1985, Ms. Rivers was waiting for a friend in a public park when she disappeared. That night, two men driving down a country road heard a scream and saw a man making stabbing motions. Ms. Rivers bled to death.

If executed, Hicks will be the 12th inmate put to death by lethal injection.