US halts schizophrenic man's execution

A court will decide if the electric chair is unnecessarily cruel

The Supreme Court in the southern US state of Georgia has halted the execution of a 32-year-old mentally ill man convicted of murdering a 16-year old girl.

Alexander Williams, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, was 17 when he kidnapped, raped and murdered 16-year-old Aleta Bunch in 1986.

He was scheduled to die in the state's electric chair on Thursday night, until lawyers intervened, arguing that electrocution is an unlawful means of putting someone to death.

The particulars of the handling of this case are alarming

Param Cumaraswamy, United Nations

Williams' attorneys also say the very fact he is mentally ill, and convicted when a minor, should exempt him from paying for his crimes with his life.

Lawyers critical

The case has attracted particular attention because Williams was also convicted and tried as an adult for a crime committed when he was technically still a child.

Lawyers have been fiercely critical of the handling of the case, and allege that Williams' original defence attorney was incompetent.

"The particulars of the handling of this case for Mr Williams by the attorney, as alleged, are alarming," said UN human rights expert Param Cumaraswamy.

Human rights and mental health groups fiercely oppose the sentence. The European Union and the United Nations have also appealed to US authorities to show clemency.

'Cruel and unusual'

Williams, who has confessed to the crimes, reportedly spends his days in prison dressed as the Lone Ranger, and talking to invisible frogs in his cell.

Most death row inmates now face lethal injection

The case is expected to hinge on whether the court agrees with lawyers' claims that death by electrocution is unlawful because it constitutes a "cruel and unusual" form of punishment.

If so, some believe that Georgia may follow the lead of other US states such as Florida, and replace its electric chairs with other forms of execution such as lethal injection.

Georgia removed the death by electrocution as a punishment from its statute books on 1 May, but death row inmates convicted before this date still face the electric chair.