US judge won't delay Lohan case

A JUDGE has refused to delay Lindsay Lohan's trial on reckless driving and other charges and admonished her attorney, saying he needs help on the case.

Superior Court Judge James Dabney advised New York lawyer Mark Heller that his pleadings weren't appropriate under California law.

Heller was told to get assistance from another lawyer or Lohan would be required to attend hearings to gauge his ability to represent her.

The actress was not required to attend Friday's hearing. Heller did not comment after it ended.

Dabney also said there was no good reason to delay the March 18 trial, noting that he was sceptical that more time would allow Lohan to demonstrate she had changed after years of run-ins with the law.

"I don't know how the next two weeks is suddenly going to change the history of this case, these cases," Dabney said.

Lohan has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanour charges of reckless driving, lying to police and obstructing officers after her sports car crashed in June as she and a passenger headed to a movie shoot.

Lohan was on probation in a theft case at the time.

Heller had sought a delay as he works with prosecutors to reach a plea deal that could allow Lohan to pursue inspirational speaking or other community service.

Lohan could face a return to jail if she is convicted, or if a judge determines she violated the terms of her sentence in the 2011 necklace theft case.

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Eleventh-hour delay in US execution

A US appeals court in Georgia has delayed the execution of a mentally disabled man with just minutes to spare, his lawyer says.

The US Supreme Court had earlier rejected a final appeal in the case of Warren Hill, a 52-year-old African American with a reported IQ of 70, who has spent the last 21 years on death row for killing a fellow inmate.

His planned execution has drawn protests from rights activists and mental health advocates calling the sentence a miscarriage of justice.

The Supreme Court ruled against the execution of prisoners with mental disabilities in 2002, but left each state with the authority to determine what constitutes mental disability.

Georgia has the strictest standard of any US state, with courts requiring "proof of retardation beyond a reasonable doubt" -- a burden that some mental health professionals say is almost impossible to meet.

A Georgia court earlier agreed with an appeal by Hill's lawyers, but was then overruled by a higher court in the state, which found that Hill could not prove his retardation beyond a reasonable doubt.

In the latest appeal, Hill's lawyers had asked the court to grant them another opportunity to prove he is ineligible for execution.

"Each of the state witnesses who previously testified that he is not mentally retarded has since repudiated his earlier opinion and now agrees with Mr Hill's experts that Mr Hill satisfies Georgia's criteria for finding him mentally retarded," they wrote.

If Hill had been put to death as scheduled, at 7pm local time, it would have been the first death penalty to have been carried out in Georgia since the controversial 2011 execution of Troy Davis.

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