On Monday, August 5, 2013, Florida executed John Ferguson, a convicted murderer and paranoid schizophrenic. Despite previously ruling that the execution of the mentally ill is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in Ferguson's case, thereby indirectly suborning the execution. Ferguson is not the first, nor likely the last, mentally-ill American to receive the death penalty in violation of the Constitution and international human rights standards. Out of respect for human rights and the protection from cruel and unusual punishment, the United States must stop executing the mentally ill.
Ferguson was found guilty of two murders and a rape he committed during a robbery in 1978 and six murders committed during a robbery in which he participated in 1977. He spent more than three decades on Florida's death row.
Ferguson is also evidently mentally ill. He has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and he had visual hallucinations. He was hospitalized recurrently after being shot in the head by a police officer, causing a traumatic brain injury; he was 21. Doctors warned that he was "dangerously mentally ill" and that he should remain in long-term hospitalization. One doctor stated that he "did not know right from wrong nor the nature and consequences of his acts." Another stated that he was "dangerous and cannot be released under any circumstances." Nonetheless, Ferguson was released from the hospital, after which he killed several people.
As his attorney explained, "He has told psychiatrists for 40 years — that he is the Prince of God. He also told them that he would 'come back to life,' that his body would not remain in his grave, and that he was destined to be the 'only one' at the right hand of God." He also sees "shadow people" watching him and Communist plots that he will root out when he is with God. Ferguson believed the death penalty was preparing him for "ascension" into Heaven.
The United States Supreme Court has previously held that it is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to execute the mentally ill. In 2007, the Court held affirmed in Panetti v. Quarterman that the Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment for "one whose mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications." In 1986, in Ford v. Wainwright, another Florida case, the Court held that "the Eighth Amendment prohibits the State from inflicting the death penalty upon a prisoner who is insane ... such an execution has questionable retributive value, presents no example to others, and thus has no deterrence value, and simply offends humanity."
The international community has also called for a ban on capital punishment for the mentally ill. Amnesty International and the United Nations have opposed the practice, including a 1984 United Nations report on the rights of those sentenced to death stating "nor shall the death sentence be carried out on … those who have become insane." The UN Commission on Human Rights also urged in 2000 that states, in cases of "a person suffering from any form of mental disorder," "not to execute any such person."
Without a doubt, the murder of those eight men and women was a horrible act of violence, and it is right and reasonable for a state to protect its citizens from violence and murder. However, that goal is not best achieved by the state-sanctioned execution of the mentally ill. John Ferguson was a mentally-ill man who did not understand the purpose of the punishment that was imposed. As such, his death grants neither a lesson nor any public safety not found in his incarceration. Thus, with his death, Florida disrespects human and constitutional rights in a way that should be wholly unacceptable in the United States.
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