Opinion ID: 3045707
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trials, Appeals, and Collateral Attacks

Text: Following separate trials, Ferguson was convicted of murdering the six Carol City victims and the two Hialeah victims. See Ferguson v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 580 F.3d 1183, 1190 (11th Cir. 2009). The Florida Supreme Court affirmed all eight murder convictions on direct appeal, but remanded for resentencing due to the trial court’s reliance on invalid aggravating factors and its failure to properly consider certain mitigating factors. Ferguson v. State, 417 So. 2d 639 (Fla. 1982); Ferguson v. State, 417 So. 2d 631 (Fla. 1982). On remand, the trial court reimposed the death penalty in each case and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed in a consolidated appeal. Ferguson v. State, 474 So. 2d 208 (Fla. 1985). Ferguson filed a motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 seeking relief from his convictions and sentences, but that motion was denied and the denial was affirmed on appeal. Ferguson v. State, 593 So. 2d 508 (Fla. 1992). He filed a federal habeas petition attacking his convictions and sentences, but it too was denied, and the denial was affirmed on appeal. Ferguson, 580 F.3d at 1222. 7 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 8 of 65 C. Ferguson’s Mental Health History and the Pre-2000 State Court Mental Competency Hearings Throughout the first half of the 1970s, Ferguson was consistently diagnosed by mental health professionals with paranoid schizophrenia, which resulted in commitments to a state psychiatric facility and a prescribed regimen of potent antipsychotic medications. In 1976 he was deemed mentally competent and discharged from a mental hospital. In the three and a half decades since that discharge Ferguson’s attorneys have exhaustively litigated his mental competency. Although experts have differed in their opinions about his mental state during that time, every state and federal court to decide the issue has decided that Ferguson is not mentally incompetent. Earlier determinations of competency, whether addressed to a prisoner’s responsibility for committing a crime or to his ability to stand trial, “do not foreclose a prisoner from proving he is incompetent to be executed because of his present mental condition.” Panetti, 551 U.S. at 934, 127 S.Ct. at 2848. Still, the history of Ferguson’s mental condition, the opinions of experts regarding it, and judicial decisions about it over the years are all relevant to a discussion of his present mental condition. In connection with his two 1978 murder trials, the state court held separate hearings, one before each trial, to determine whether Ferguson was competent to 8 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 9 of 65 stand trial. See Ferguson v. Singletary, 632 So. 2d 53, 58 (Fla. 1994). Four courtappointed experts filed reports before the Carol City trial (the one with eight shooting victims), unanimously concluding that Ferguson was mentally competent. See id. Some of the four experts were even of the opinion that Ferguson was malingering and not actually schizophrenic, but instead likely was sociopathic. See Ferguson, 593 So. 2d at 510. Notably, two of those four court-appointed experts, Drs. Charles Mutter and Albert Jaslow, receded from the diagnoses that they had reached in the early to mid-1970s that Ferguson was actively psychotic. Based on the four experts’ opinions, the trial court found Ferguson mentally competent to stand trial. See Ferguson, 417 So. 2d at 645. Following his convictions in the Carol City trial, Ferguson obtained several mental health experts and entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity in the Hialeah trial (the one with two murder victims). See Ferguson, 417 So. 2d at 637. The trial court held a pretrial competency hearing and considered conflicting testimony from at least seven expert witnesses, three of whom had also filed reports in connection with the earlier murder trial. See id. The experts were, by and large, evenly split on the question of Ferguson’s competency to stand trial: three found Ferguson incompetent while another three found him competent. Although it is unclear from the record what the seventh expert concluded, it is clear that the trial court again found that Ferguson was competent to stand trial. See id. 9 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 10 of 65 The Florida Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that there was adequate medical testimony to support the trial judge’s finding that Ferguson was mentally competent to stand trial. Id. at 634. When Ferguson filed his initial state post-conviction motion in 1987, he also filed a motion to stay the proceedings based on his alleged incompetence to assist counsel. See Ferguson v. State, 789 So. 2d 306, 308 (Fla. 2001). The trial court appointed three experts to assess Ferguson’s mental health at the time, ordered numerous neurological examinations, and held a three-day evidentiary hearing in August 1998, at which a total of six expert witnesses testified on the issue of mental competence. Id. at 313–14. While the experts offered conflicting testimony about the genuineness and severity of Ferguson’s psychological symptoms, the trial court found that the credible evidence demonstrated that Ferguson did not suffer from a major mental disorder, found that he was malingering, and found that he was mentally competent to understand the proceedings and assist his counsel. See id. at 313–15. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s findings and determination on those issues, concluding that they were adequately supported by the evidence presented at the hearing. Id. at 315. 10 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 11 of 65 D. The First Federal Habeas Proceeding In March of 1995 Ferguson filed his first federal habeas petition, which raised numerous constitutional claims about various aspects of his trial, sentencing, and state post-conviction proceedings, including a claim that his due process rights had been violated because the state post-conviction proceedings were conducted while he was mentally incompetent. See Ferguson, 580 F.3d at 1192–93, 1220. He also filed a motion to stay the federal habeas proceedings on the ground that he was mentally incompetent to proceed with it. In December 2004, the district court held a five-day evidentiary hearing on the motion to stay the habeas proceedings at which it heard conflicting testimony from six expert witnesses about Ferguson’s mental state at that time. See id. at 1192, 1221–22. After considering the evidence, the district court denied the motion to stay because it found that Ferguson was mentally competent to proceed with the habeas proceeding. See id. On appeal, we summarized the district court’s findings on the issue: After holding a competency hearing, the district court found that there was credible evidence to show that Ferguson at one time suffered from a mental disorder that had symptoms associated with paranoid schizophrenia and that, since 1994, his mental health has improved so as to make him “no longer a disruptive member of his prison environment.” R4-107 at 15. It also found that his disorder was in remission and that he was malingering or exaggerating his symptoms. See id. The court further found that Ferguson had the “mental competency, clarity of thought, directness of speech, and motivation 11 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 12 of 65 to advance his interests and objectives when faced with a variety of adverse circumstances.” Id. at 15, 17. The court made a number of other factual findings including that the totality of his test results supported the conclusion that he was “consciously reporting symptoms of mental illness that he [was] not presently experiencing” and that his unwillingness to cooperate with his counsel was based on a desire to avoid punishment. Id. at 17, 20. Based on all of this, the court concluded that Ferguson “ha[d] sufficient present ability to consult with counsel with a reasonable degree of rational understanding-and ha[d] a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” Id. at 21-23. Ferguson, 580 F.3d at 1221–22. We found ample evidence to support all of the district court’s findings on the competency issue. Id. at 1222. Assuming that a petitioner had a right to have his federal habeas proceeding stayed during a period of mental incompetency, we held that the district court had not erred in denying Ferguson a stay. 1 Id. We also affirmed the district court’s denial of all of Ferguson’s constitutional claims, including his claim that the state post-conviction court had violated his due process rights by adjudicating his claims while he was mentally incompetent to proceed. As to that claim, we explained that: “After carefully examining the record from the [state collateral court’s] 1 The Supreme Court later held that federal habeas petitioners have no right to stay the adjudication of their petitions on grounds of mental incompetence. Ryan v. Gonzales, — U.S. —, 133 S.Ct. 696, 700 (2013). 12 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 13 of 65 competency hearing, we find that the evidence fairly supported the finding that Ferguson was competent to proceed with his 3.850 claim.” Id. at 1221. E. The 2012 State Commission Competency Proceedings On September 5, 2012, the Governor of Florida signed a warrant for Ferguson’s execution and prison officials scheduled the execution for October 16, 2012. Ferguson requested a hearing on his competency to be executed, and, as required by Fla. Stat. § 922.07, the Governor temporarily stayed the execution and appointed a commission of three psychiatrists. Drs. Wade Myers, Alan Waldman, and Tonia Werner were to determine whether Ferguson “understands the nature and effect of the death penalty and why it is to be imposed upon him.” The Governor directed the commission to conduct its evaluation on October 1, 2012, and submit a written report by the following day. As instructed, the commissioners met on October 1, 2012, jointly interviewed Ferguson for roughly 90 minutes, reviewed his mental health records from 1978 to the present, and interviewed three correctional officers who had regular contact with Ferguson over the years. The commissioners issued their report later that same day, finding that Ferguson “understands the nature and effect of the death penalty and why it was imposed on him,” and finding that he was not then suffering from mental illness. In support of its findings, the commission noted that Ferguson’s mental health records showed that, while he was once 13 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 14 of 65 diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he had been free of signs and symptoms of mental illness for a number of years, had not been treated with antipsychotic medications since 2000, and since August 2001 had been classified as an S-1 inmate, which is a psychiatric grade given to state prisoners who have no identifiable mental health problems impairing their functioning in the prison setting. The commission’s report further noted that, during the interview, Ferguson was calm, cooperative, and responsive; he exhibited average intelligence; he denied any cognitive disturbances; and he demonstrated linear and goal-directed thought processes. While Ferguson told the commissioners that he had been anointed the “Prince of God” and would arise following his death to be at the “right hand of God,” the commissioners concluded that even if these were genuine delusions, they did not affect Ferguson’s “factual and rational understanding of his impending execution.” The report specifically mentioned that Ferguson acknowledged that he was going to be executed because of the murders he had committed and acknowledged that he would die as a result of the execution. Finally, the report recounted that the three correctional officers, who had known Ferguson for a period of time ranging from nine months to ten years, all described him as polite and rational, and none of them had observed any abnormalities in his thinking, communication, or behavior. 14 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 15 of 65 After receiving the competency commission’s report, the Governor determined that Ferguson had the mental capacity to understand both the nature of the death penalty that was to be inflicted on him and the reasons it would be, and on that basis the Governor lifted the stay of execution. On October 3, 2012, Ferguson petitioned the state trial court to review the Governor’s competency determination, contending that executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment, as interpreted in Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595 (1986), and Panetti, 511 U.S. 930, 127 S.Ct. 2842, because he lacked a rational understanding of the reasons for, and the consequences of, the punishment. Ferguson also argued that Florida’s existing standard for assessing competency to be executed, codified in Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.811(b) and 3.812(b), was inconsistent with the standard announced in Panetti. F. The 2012 State Court Evidentiary Hearing On October 8, 2012, the trial court issued a stay of execution. Thereafter, the court held a two-day evidentiary hearing. During that hearing Ferguson presented the testimony of two expert witnesses, Drs. George Woods and Richard Rogers, as well as the testimony of one of his attorneys, Patricia Brannan, who had been present during the competency commission’s evaluation of Ferguson. The State, in turn, called three expert witnesses, Drs. Wade Myers, Tonia Werner, and Enrique Suarez; five prison officials who had recent contact with Ferguson; and 15 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 16 of 65 Jennifer Sagle, a mental health counselor who had worked on death row until July 2012.

Dr. George Woods, a psychiatric expert who has testified throughout the country on behalf of capital inmates, reviewed Ferguson’s mental health records, interviewed him on three separate occasions from October 2011 to September 2012, and administered several neurological tests. He prepared a written report on Ferguson’s behalf, which was admitted into evidence during the evidentiary hearing. In his report, Dr. Woods recounted Ferguson’s documented history of paranoid schizophrenia, including his belief that he is the Prince of God. The report stated that Ferguson exhibited delusional beliefs and reported experiencing visual, auditory, and olfactory hallucinations throughout the years. According to Dr. Woods’ report, Ferguson said that his long-deceased father was still alive and protecting him, that he is the Prince of God, that he will be resurrected at some point after his execution “to sit at the right hand of God,” and that he is destined to ascend to his rightful throne and ultimately “save the world.” Ferguson also told Dr. Woods about visual and auditory hallucinations of seeing and communicating with his dead father, as well as olfactory hallucinations of an inexplicable “sweet smell.” Ferguson recounted earlier experiences of seeing snakes and vicious dogs 16 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 17 of 65 coming out of the walls of his cell, although he acknowledged that his visual and auditory hallucinations had diminished over the past decade. Dr. Woods’ report concluded that, although Ferguson understands that he is facing execution and that the State of Florida intends to execute him for the crimes for which he was convicted, he lacks a rational understanding of the reason for the execution and its consequences. The report said that Ferguson believes his convictions and continued incarceration on death row are “not based upon the law,” but are part of a plot by the State of Florida “to prevent him from ascending to his rightful throne as the Prince of God,” as well as a “conspiracy of corrupt policemen” to retaliate against him “for being acquitted in a prior case.” The report said that Ferguson believes he will not die as a result of his execution due to “his father’s powers” and his eventual resurrection. In his hearing testimony, Dr. Woods reiterated his opinion that Ferguson is a paranoid schizophrenic and lacks a rational understanding of the reason for his execution and its consequences. He testified that Ferguson has grandiose delusions that he is the Prince of God, that there is a Communist plot to take over the United States, that he will play a divine role in driving away the Communist threat, and that the State cannot kill him because he possesses “special powers.” Dr. Woods also recounted Ferguson’s reports of visual hallucinations of seeing “shadow people” since a very young age, auditory hallucinations of hearing the voice of his 17 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 18 of 65 dead father, and olfactory hallucinations of a “sweet smell” that would persist even after he cleaned his cell. In contrast to his written report, however, Dr. Woods testified at the evidentiary hearing that Ferguson believes that, through his trial and incarceration, the State of Florida has been preparing him for his “ascension” to his rightful throne as the Prince of God, not preventing him from doing so. And, also unlike his report, Dr. Woods did not testify that Ferguson believed that his convictions, incarceration, and impending execution were the product of a conspiracy among state officials or were the result of anything other than the murders he had committed. In his testimony, Dr. Woods conceded that Ferguson had not taken any antipsychotic drugs since 2000, had not exhibited any unusual behaviors to prison staff since that time, and since 2001 had maintained an S-1 classification (the designation for prisoners with no identifiable mental health concerns that might impair their functioning in prison). He also conceded that Ferguson had filed a number of prison grievances over the years that were “fairly goal-directed toward his daily life” and made no reference at all to believing that he is the Prince of God. Dr. Woods described Ferguson as a “geriatric” or “late-life” schizophrenic who, despite his psychosis, did not necessarily require medication and would not necessarily exhibit any outward manifestations of his illness because the “positive symptoms” of paranoid schizophrenia diminish with age. He stated that paranoid 18 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 19 of 65 schizophrenics are the highest functioning types of schizophrenics and can perform ordinary tasks in structured environments. In further support of his diagnosis, Dr. Woods opined that Ferguson suffers from cavum septum pellucidum, a fissure between the two hemispheres of the brain indicative of schizophrenia. Although Dr. Woods initially testified that the fissure was “very deep,” he later retreated from that description, conceding on cross-examination that the 2004 radiology report upon which he had relied actually stated that Ferguson’s brain was intact except for a “very small” cavum septum pellucidum. Dr. Woods also conceded that a 2001 article from the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that a small cavum septum pellucidum is a normal anatomical variant that appears in virtually equal numbers of schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic people.
Dr. Richard Rogers, an expert in forensic psychology and malingering, also testified as an expert witness for Ferguson. He evaluated Ferguson on September 20 and 21, 2012, for the limited purpose of determining whether he was currently malingering or feigning psychotic symptoms. In addition to interviewing Ferguson, Dr. Rogers administered a battery of malingering tests. He acknowledged that two of the test scores were elevated and did suggest that Ferguson was malingering. However, based on the totality of the results of the 19 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 20 of 65 administered tests, Dr. Rogers was of the opinion that Ferguson was not currently malingering, even if he had done so in the past. On the core question of mental competency, however, Dr. Rogers conceded that Ferguson did not exhibit any obvious signs of cognitive impairment in his writings or verbal communications and appeared to be of average intelligence.
At the evidentiary hearing, the State first presented the testimony of two of the psychiatrists who had served on the Governor’s competency commission, Drs. Myers and Werner.
Dr. Wade Myers, a board certified psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Brown University, testified that he had evaluated and diagnosed thousands of schizophrenic people during his professional career. Dr. Myers described how he and his fellow commissioners had conducted their competency evaluation of Ferguson. They began by reviewing two file boxes of medical, psychiatric, and correctional records dating back to 1978. Each of the three commissioners had taken a portion of the records, reviewed them for information about Ferguson’s mental health, and then discussed with the other two commissioners the records they found significant. Among other things, the records established that Ferguson had been classified as an S-1 inmate since 2001, he had not taken any psychotropic 20 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 21 of 65 medications since 2000, and his prison mental-health evaluations did not indicate he had shown any symptoms of mental illness since at least 2001. Dr. Myers testified that, after reviewing the medical records for 90 minutes, the commission interviewed Ferguson for an additional 90 minutes in the presence of attorneys from both sides. During the interview, Ferguson was polite, calm, cooperative, and did not exhibit any signs of distress or of any thought disorder. Ferguson informed the commissioners that he was not taking any psychiatric medications, did not feel like he needed psychiatric treatment, and told them that he did not suffer from any mental problems. When one of the commissioners, Dr. Waldman, mentioned that Ferguson had been convicted of six homicides, Ferguson corrected him and said that it was eight. Dr. Myers further testified that Ferguson discussed his religious beliefs, stating that he was a Christian, believed in God, read the Bible regularly, and liked to visit the prison chaplain. Ferguson said that he hears the voice of God with his “inner ears,” but only when he prays. Ferguson also informed the commissioners that he was anointed the Prince of God many years ago, and that he would be resurrected following his execution to sit “at the right hand of God.” According to Dr. Myers, Ferguson only mentioned two current hallucinations: seeing dark shadow people, which no longer bothered him, and experiencing an inexplicable “sweet smell,” which he actually enjoyed. Ferguson told them that, in the distant 21 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 22 of 65 past, he had witnessed vicious dogs coming out of his cell walls and “snakes coming out of his leg,” though those particular hallucinations had stopped decades ago. Dr. Myers also testified that, following their interview of Ferguson, the commissioners interviewed three correctional officers who had daily interactions with Ferguson for time periods ranging from almost a year to nine years. Those officers reported that Ferguson communicated normally, was coherent, and never exhibited any bizarre behavior. After reviewing some additional records and conferring with one another, the three commissioners unanimously concluded that Ferguson had the mental capacity to understand the nature and effect of the death penalty and the reason it was being imposed on him. Dr. Myers explained that, although he and Dr. Waldman brought a number of psychological tests to the evaluation, the commission members found no reason to administer the tests given the lack of evidence that Ferguson suffered from any significant mental illness. Dr. Myers emphasized that Ferguson displayed lucid thinking and average intelligence throughout the interview, that the correctional records showed that he was functioning well in his day-to-day life, and that the correctional officers interviewed by the commission had witnessed no bizarre behaviors by him. Dr. Myers also testified that he believed that Ferguson was fabricating his reported 22 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 23 of 65 delusions and, even if they were genuine, he would still not meet the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia because the delusions were not disrupting his daily life. Dr. Myers testified that Ferguson had a “rational understanding of the nature of the death penalty and the reason it is to be inflicted upon him.”
Dr. Tonia Werner, a board certified psychiatrist and professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Florida, who had served as one of the competency commissioners, also testified at the evidentiary hearing. She corroborated Dr. Myers’ account of the commission’s evaluation process and agreed with his opinion that Ferguson does possess a rational understanding of the fact of his impending execution and of the reason for it. Dr. Werner confirmed that Ferguson informed the commissioners that he had been anointed the Prince of God, would be resurrected after his death to “sit at the right hand of God,” and would eventually return to Earth. She testified, however, that Ferguson had indicated that he was going to be executed and stated that he would be the first state inmate to receive Florida’s new lethal-injection protocol. She recounted that Dr. Waldman had specifically asked Ferguson whether he would physically die and be buried after his execution, and Ferguson answered that he would. Finally, Dr. Werner testified that she did not believe that Ferguson was currently suffering from a major mental illness because his reported hallucinations, 23 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 24 of 65 particularly those of seeing shadow people, were inconsistent with schizophrenia, and there were no signs of dysfunction in his daily activities. She explained that, even if Ferguson were suffering from mental illness, he did not demonstrate any difficulties in his mental capacity or cognition that would suggest that he did not fully understand the reasons for and the consequences of his impending execution.
Dr. Enrique Suarez, a neuropsychologist, also testified for the State at the evidentiary hearing. He had examined Ferguson in 2004 during the federal habeas proceedings and had concluded that Ferguson was not exhibiting any behavioral symptoms of psychosis and was malingering. Dr. Suarez testified that he had reviewed Ferguson’s records from the 2004 proceeding and from that time to the present, had reviewed the reports of Ferguson’s expert witnesses, and had listened to the testimony of all of the experts who had testified at the present hearing (he was the last expert witness to testify before Dr. Woods was recalled as a rebuttal witness). After considering all of those records and testimony, Dr. Suarez was still of the opinion that Ferguson was not schizophrenic. Dr. Suarez emphasized that it is highly unlikely for a schizophrenic not to suffer a relapse after being unmedicated for more than a decade, and that Ferguson’s various inmate requests and prison grievances showed “no bleedthrough” of his professed delusions and hallucinations. He specifically identified 24 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 25 of 65 an inmate request form dated July 25, 2011, in which Ferguson requested 256 pages of legal materials for a pro se appeal that he was pursuing. According to Dr. Suarez, the request was perfectly coherent, “[q]uite sophisticated,” and demonstrated that “delusional contamination” did not hinder Ferguson from being “able to work through the system that’s set up to get his needs met.”
The State also called as witnesses a number of prison officials who had regular contact with Ferguson around the time his death warrant was signed on September 5, 2012. They uniformly testified that Ferguson did not exhibit any abnormal behaviors or make any unusual requests that suggested he was mentally unstable. Officer Jay Taylor, who spoke to Ferguson on the day his death warrant was signed, testified that Ferguson stated that he had not had a warrant signed on him in 35 years. Brad Whitehead, the assistant warden at Florida State Prison, testified that he spoke to Ferguson about his wishes for a last meal, the disposition of his remains, and who should be contacted. Ferguson provided Whitehead with the names of his mother, his attorneys’ law firm, and his spiritual advisor, and he also expressed concern about his mother’s wellbeing due to her medical conditions. When asked what he wanted done with his remains after his execution, Ferguson responded that he needed to consult with his attorneys about that. At no point did 25 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 26 of 65 he indicate or imply that he was unconcerned about the disposition of his remains because his status as the Prince of God would render that matter moot. Jennifer Sagle, a mental health counselor who worked on death row from December 2005 until July 2012, testified that during the time she worked there Ferguson maintained an S-1 psychiatric classification, the lowest level recognized by the Florida Department of Corrections. Sagle further testified that she never received any complaints or referrals from other inmates or prison guards regarding Ferguson’s mental health, and that she had not personally observed any unusual behavior or symptoms of schizophrenia during her weekly rounds. Although Sagle acknowledged that paranoid schizophrenics might not outwardly manifest “positive symptoms” of their disease, such as hallucinations, she testified that they would exhibit “negative symptoms” such as a flattened affect and lack of motivation, which Ferguson had not shown.
Ferguson called two witnesses in rebuttal. The first was Patricia Brannan, one of his attorneys who had attended the evaluation by the mental competency commission. She testified that Ferguson was calm, placid, focused, and cooperative while the commissioners interviewed him, though he became agitated a few times in response to particular questions. She indicated that, contrary to Dr. Myers’ testimony, it was one of the commissioners who had corrected the 26 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 27 of 65 misstatement that Ferguson had been convicted of six murders. She further stated that, when asked about his impending execution, Ferguson responded “they’re gonna kill me, like Jesus” and that “God told me lethal injection, and they have some new stuff just for me.” Moreover, when asked by a commissioner about what would happen after he was buried, Ferguson responded that he would ascend to “sit at the right hand of God” and would eventually return to his “rightful place in the world.” Dr. Woods was the other rebuttal witness. He testified that the relapse rate for geriatric (or late-life) schizophrenics is only about four percent even among those not taking antipsychotic medication. He also stated that the fact that Ferguson had not exhibited any symptoms to prison officials and employees after being off medication for more than a decade was not inconsistent with his diagnosis of late-life schizophrenia. He stuck to his diagnosis of Ferguson and the opinion that he was not mentally competent to be executed. 4. The 2012 State Trial Court Decision on Ferguson’s Competency After the evidentiary hearing on the competency issue, the state trial court issued an order finding that Ferguson had failed to meet his burden of proving that he was mentally incompetent to be executed. State v. Ferguson, No. 04-2012-CA507, op. at 1, 17 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Oct. 12, 2012). The court, partially crediting the testimony of Dr. Woods and Dr. Rogers “as it relates to Ferguson’s documented 27 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 28 of 65 history of paranoid schizophrenia,” found that Ferguson suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, that there was not “sufficient evidence [he was] malingering during the interview with the Commission,” and that he harbors a genuine delusional belief that he is the Prince of God. Id. at 17. However, the court specifically found “the testimony and opinions of Dr. Myers and Dr. Werner to be credible as to the limited question of Ferguson’s competency to be executed” and found their testimony on those issues to be supported by both the record and the testimony of the prison officials and employees. Id. at 17–18. The court concluded that, although Ferguson suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, “there is no evidence that he does not understand what is taking place and why it is taking place” or that his “mental illness interferes, in any way, with his ‘rational understanding’ of the fact of his pending execution and the reason for it.” Id. at 18. In support of its conclusion, the court emphasized that “Ferguson is aware that the State is executing him for the murders he committed and that he will physically die as a result of the execution,” and that “[t]here is no evidence that in his current mental state Ferguson believes himself unable to die or that he is being executed for any reason other than the murders he was convicted of in 1978.” Id. The court also remarked that, “[i]n some sense, Ferguson appears to have fit his grandiose [Prince-of-God] delusion into a traditional religious worldview” and that his “belief as to his role in the world and what may happen to 28 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 29 of 65 him in the afterlife is [not] so significantly different from beliefs other Christians may hold so as to consider it a sign of insanity.” Id. The state trial court rejected Ferguson’s contention that Panetti displaced or added anything to the existing state standard for assessing mental competency to be executed, which asks whether a prisoner “lacks the mental capacity to understand the fact of the impending execution and the reason for it.” Id. at 4. The court noted that, in Provenzano v. State, 760 So. 2d 137 (Fla. 2000), which was decided before Panetti, the Florida Supreme Court had “considered the difficulties of persons who have mental illnesses and delusions” and held that they could still be found mentally competent to be executed if they possessed “a factual and rational understanding” of their execution and the reasons for it. Id. at 4–5. 5. The 2012 Florida Supreme Court Decision on Ferguson’s Competency Ferguson appealed that decision to the Florida Supreme Court, contending that the state trial court had failed to apply the mental competency standard announced in Panetti and that the Florida Supreme Court’s Provenzano decision was no longer good law. He contended in the alternative that, even if the trial court had applied the correct legal standard, its finding that he was mentally competent to be executed was not supported by the record, particularly given the subsidiary findings that he is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that he is the Prince of God. Ferguson also claimed that he had not been afforded a full and fair 29 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 30 of 65 evidentiary hearing before the state trial court, in contravention of his due process rights. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision. It found that there was “competent, substantial evidence” to support the trial court’s finding that Ferguson’s mental illness and Prince-of-God delusion did not interfere with his “rational understanding” of the fact of his pending execution and the reason for it, and that the record supported the finding that he “understands what is taking place and why.” Ferguson v. State, No. SC12-2115, op. at 4, 7 (Fla. Oct. 17, 2012). The Court did not adopt the state trial court’s view that Ferguson’s delusions were a grandiose manifestation of otherwise normal Christian beliefs. It stated that “[w]hether Ferguson’s convictions are representative of mainstream Christian principles or delusions that derive from his mental illness does not affect our inquiry.” Id. at 4. Either way, he understood that he was going to be executed and why. The Florida Supreme Court also rejected Ferguson’s contention that Panetti imposed a stricter standard for mental competency to be executed than the one it had adopted in its Provenzano decision. Id. at 6–8. In doing so, the Court acknowledged Panetti’s statement that a “prisoner’s awareness of the State’s rationale for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it,” but explained that Panetti was a “narrowly tailored decision” and that Provenzano 30 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 31 of 65 itself had required that a prisoner “understand the connection between his crime and the punishment he is to receive for it.” Id. at 7–8. G. This Federal Habeas Proceeding On October 19, 2012, Ferguson filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, along with an emergency motion for a stay of execution until there was a ruling on the merits of that petition. His petition claimed that he is mentally incompetent to be executed under the Eighth Amendment, as interpreted in Ford and Panetti, because he lacks a rational understanding of the consequences of, and reasons for, his impending execution. Ferguson contended that the decisions of the state courts were contrary to clearly established federal law because they relied on the factual-awareness standard rejected by Panetti and were otherwise based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. On October 20, 2012, the district court granted a temporary stay of execution to permit a “fair hearing” on Ferguson’s habeas claim. Two days later we granted the State’s emergency motion to vacate that stay of execution, concluding that the district court had applied the wrong legal standard for granting a stay and that Ferguson had failed to demonstrate that he had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his claim. We specifically determined that Ferguson did not show that the Florida Supreme Court either unreasonably applied 31 Case: 12-15422 Date Filed: 05/21/2013 Page: 32 of 65 clearly established federal law or made an unreasonable determination of the facts when it found him competent to be executed. Thereafter, and less than an hour before Ferguson’s scheduled execution on October 23, 2012, the district court issued a summary order denying the habeas petition, but granting Ferguson a certificate of appealability (COA) on the following issues: A. Whether the decision of the Florida Supreme Court involved an unreasonable application of the Un[ited] States Supreme Court’s decision[s] in Ford and Panetti. B. Whether the Florida Supreme Court’s affirmance of the state trial court was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding, viz, that (a) the petitioner has a documented history of paranoid schizophrenia[,] (b) he is not malingering, and (c) he has a fixed grandiose delusion that he is the “Prince of God.” We granted a temporary stay of execution under Eleventh Circuit Rule 22- 4(a)(7). The State moved to vacate the stay of execution and dismiss Ferguson’s appeal on the ground that the district court had improperly granted a COA, particularly in light of our earlier determination that Ferguson did not have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his competency claim. We denied the State’s motion to vacate the stay of execution.