Opinion ID: 3045707
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dr. Suarez

Text: 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.”