Jerry Scott Heidler v. Christopher Carr, Individually and as Attorney General of Georgia, et al.

In 1988, the Georgia legislature enacted a statutory framework designed to enforce the Eighth Amendment’s substantive prohibition on the execution of mentally incompetent prisoners, as announced by this Court in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). See O.C.G.A. § § 17-10-60 – 17-10-71 (hereinafter, the “Execution Competency Act” or “ECA”). See also Perkins v. Hall, 288 Ga. 810, 825 n.8 (2011). However, the ECA does not contain adequate protections to guard against the unacceptable risk that prisoners like Jerry Scott. Heidler, who possess substantial claims that they are incompetent to be executed, will nonetheless face execution. This is because Georgia’s statutory framework imposes an impossible 10- to 20-day deadline on the development of execution incompetency claims—the shortest period in the entire country. In the courts below, Mr. Heidler challenged the ECA as violative of his constitutional rights. This case gives rise to the following question: 1. Does Georgia’s statutory framework for enforcing the constitutional prohibition on the execution of incompetent prisoners, in imposing a 10- to 20-day deadline on the development of incompetency claims, create an unacceptable risk that incompetent prisoners will be wrongfully executed in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?