By Curt Anderson
Associated Press
MIAMI — A convicted mass killer is scheduled for execution in Florida on Tuesday after an appeals court lifted a last-minute stay that was based on his paranoid schizophrenia. His attorneys sought a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.
John Ferguson, 64, has been on Florida’s death row for 34 years.
Ferguson’s lawyers argued to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he is mentally ill and therefore the Constitution prohibits the state from executing him.
Ferguson was convicted of killing eight people in Florida in 1977 and 1978, including a teenage couple.
The Florida Supreme Court this month upheld a lower court ruling based on testimony by a panel of psychiatrists appointed by Gov. Rick Scott that Ferguson is legally competent to be executed.
The state justices wrote that “Ferguson understands what is taking place and why.”
Ferguson’s lawyers contend an inmate’s awareness of his execution as the state’s rationale for putting him to death is not enough. They say Ferguson suffers from delusions that he’s the “prince of God” and that God is preparing him to return to Earth after his execution and save the United States from a communist plot.