Missouri inmate's execution blocked over mental health concerns
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Version 0 of 1. A federal judge has blocked the impending execution of a death row inmate in Missouri, stating that there is substantial evidence that the prisoner is insane and incapable of understanding what was about to happen to him as he faced death by lethal injection just after midnight Wednesday morning. Judge Catherine Perry of the US district court for the eastern district of Missouri issued a strongly worded ruling Tuesday morning in which she imposed a stay on the execution of John Middleton, 54, and ordered a full hearing to investigate his current mental health. Under the eighth amendment of the US constitution, it is forbidden to put to death any prisoner who is insane or who is unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it. The judge noted that Middleton, who was sentenced to death in the 1990s for three murders related to methamphetamine dealing, had a lengthy history of abusing the drug and that his mental health has deteriorated during the 17 years he has spent on death row. Fellow inmates had indicated in affidavits that Middleton “frequently talks to people who are not there, and tells stories that could not have any basis in reality”. A psychiatrist who had examined Middleton also provided his expert opinion that the prisoner “lacks a rational understanding of the reason for the execution and is therefore not competent to be executed due to a diagnosis of delusional disorder, a psychotic mental illness”. Though the stay will be greeted by anti-death penalty advocates as an important intervention by the federal courts, this is by no means the end of the fight. Missouri times its executions to take place at 12.01am, specifically to allow a full 24 hours of legal argument before the death warrant runs out – in the case of Middleton at midnight on Wednesday. Missouri will now appeal the stay of execution to the 8th circuit federal appeals court, and beyond that there remains the possibility of appeal to the US supreme court, the highest judicial panel in the nation. Missouri has recently become one of the most aggressive capital punishment states in the US, carrying out executions at a rate of almost one a month. Were Middleton to be put to death he would be the sixth prisoner to be executed by Missouri this year alone. Middleton was sentenced to death for two separate shooting incidents in June 1995 that left three people – Randy Hamilton, Stacey Hodge and Alfred Pinegar – dead. The killings were thought to be drug related, with the victims apparently gunned down due to suspicion that they were police informants Lawyers acting for Middleton have presented new evidence to the courts that they claim proves his innocence. They say that the new material shows that the state was mistaken about the date of one of the victim’s deaths – an error that would give Middleton a cast-iron alibi. A petition lodged with the federal appeals court also claims that two other meth dealers had in fact committed the murders and that they covered up their guilt by implicating Middleton. |