The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area report noted that in many other states they had been unable to secure any evidence of Convention compliance at all.122 Individuals with mental illness or disability In 2002, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing a mentally retarded person constitutes a violation of the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling left it to the discretion of the states to develop appropriate ways to enforce this constitutional restriction.123 On 22 May 2013, lawyers of Georgian death row inmate Warren Hill filed a petition to the Supreme Court of the United States, due to new evidence related to his/her mental disability. In Georgia, the defendant must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he/she is “mentally retarded”. The petition stated that all seven mental health experts who have examined Hill now agree that he is “mentally retarded”. Despite the unanimity, Hill has been denied a hearing to determine whether the new evidence precludes the application of the death penalty in his case by Courts of the State of Georgia, the Georgian Board of Pardons and Parole and the Eleventh Circuit Federal Court.124 On 19 May 2013, the longest serving death row inmate in the United Stated died of natural causes, after almost 40 years on Florida’s death row. Gary Alvord was sentenced to death in 1974 and had outlived two death warrants due to his severe mental illness. In 1984, Alvord was sent to a state hospital for mental-illness treatment. Doctors refused to treat him, however, due to the ethical dilemma of improving the conditions of a patient so that he could then be executed. Alvord’s final appeal expired in 1998.125 122  “The United States’ Failure to Observe its Legal Obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) in Capital Cases”, Reprieve, November 2012, <http://www.reprieve.org.uk/static/downloads/2013_02_26_ PUB_VCCR_Report_Web.pdf>. 123  Atkins v. Virginia, Cornell University Law School, 20 June 2002, <http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/008452.ZO.html>. 124  Petition For A Writ Of Habeas Corpus In A Capital Case, 22 May 2013 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ documents/HillPetitionMay2013.pdf 125  “Nation’s Longest Serving Death Row Inmate Dies 40 Years After Conviction”, Death Penalty Information Center, 21 May 2013, <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/nations-longest-serving-death-row-inmate-dies-40-years-after-conviction>. 29