The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2021 stop Lisa Montgomery’s execution, to no avail. 221 Lisa Montgomery was executed on 13 January 2021 by lethal injection. During the reporting period, the Florida Supreme Court reduced the constitutional protections for death row prisoners. 222 In the case of Phillips v. State, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Hall v. Florida judgement does not apply to cases that were finalised before Hall was decided in 2014. In Hall v. Florida, United States Supreme Court declared that Florida’s standard to prove IQ was below 70 was unconstitutionally narrow and hence did not protect those with intellectual disabilities from receiving death sentences. Moreover, the Florida Supreme Court stopped independently reviewing death penalty cases on appeal – a practice that was designed to ensure that death sentences are not disproportionate to other sentences imposed in similar cases.223 Moreover, many defendants sentenced during the reporting period waived procedural rights, raising concern about arbitrary deprivation of life. According to one report, more than 20 per cent of the death sentences passed in 2020 were the result of proceedings in which defendants were not afforded key procedural protections, for example where defendants waived their right to a jury trial or to legal counsel,224 including several of the persons executed during the reporting period. Walter Barton, the first person executed during the COVID-19 pandemic by Missouri maintained his innocence and the case against him relied on misleading forensic evidence.225 New evidence was collected by his defence team, and three jurors who convicted him signed affidavits saying that the new evidence would have impacted their deliberations.226 In the case of Corey Johnson, the United States Supreme Court denied an emergency stay of execution, thus preventing him from presenting evidence proving that he 221 Letter to President Donald Trump of 11 November 2020 – this formed part of a series of letters delivered to administration officials and released to the public by Montgomery’s lawyers on November 11, 2020. Death Penalty Information Center, Coalition of More Than 1,000 Advocates Urge Federal Government to Halt December 8 Execution of Lisa Montgomery, 12 November 2020. 222 Death Penalty Information Center, Florida Supreme Court Limits Enforcement of Supreme Court Decision Barring Execution of Intellectually Disabled Prisoners, 27 May 2020. 223 Death Penalty Information Center, Florida Supreme Court Abandons 50-Year-Old Proportionality Safeguard for Capital Defendants, 2 November 2020. “The practice, known as comparative proportionality review, was initiated by the court a half-century ago after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all existing U.S. death penalty statutes in Furman v. Georgia because of the unconstitutionally arbitrary manner in which capital punishment was administered.” 224 Death Penalty Information Center, op. cit., note 177, p. 26. 225 Ibid., p. 16. 226 ACLU, First Person Executed During Covid-19 Pandemic Put to Death by Lethal Injection in Missouri, 19 May 2020 and Death Penalty Information Center, First Execution, New Death Sentence During Coronavirus Pandemic Highlight Grave Flaws in U.S. Capital Punishment System, 21 May 2020. 53