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

Heading: Ferguson’s Rebuttal Witnesses

Text: 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.