Ferguson v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 21 May 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–15422.,12–15422.
• Citation: 716 F.3d 1315
• Parties: John FERGUSON, Petitioner–Appellant, v. SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

716 F.3d 1315

John FERGUSON, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 12–15422.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 21, 2013.

Christopher Todd Handman, Lindsay Dobrzynski Breedlove, E. Desmond Hogan, Hogan Lovells US, LLP, Erica M. Knievel, Washington, DC, Daniel Cervantes, Hogan Lovells US, LLP, Miami, FL, Benjamin James Oliver Lewis, Hogan Lovells US, LLP, New York City, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Stephen D. Ake, Scott A. Browne, Atty. Gen.'s Office, Tampa, FL, for Respondent–Appellee.

Angela C. Vigil, Baker & McKenzie, LLP, Miami, FL, for National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Alliance on Mental Illness—Florida Chapter, Florida Psychological Ass'n, Florida Psychiatric Society.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before CARNES, WILSON and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

The Supreme Court has decided that a convicted murderer cannot be executed unless he has a rational understanding of the fact that he is going to be put to death and of the reason for his execution. Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 954–60, 127 S.Ct. 2842, 2859–62, 168 L.Ed.2d 662 (2007). In announcing that rule, however, the Court did not decide what rational understanding means in this context. It acknowledged that “a concept like rational understanding is difficult to define” and cautioned that “normal” or “rational” in this context does not mean what a layperson understands those terms to mean. Id. at 959–60, 127 S.Ct. at 2862. The Court did reject the standard the court of appeals had applied in the Panetti case because that standard disregarded or did not give sufficient consideration to evidence of “psychological dysfunction” and “delusional beliefs.” Id. at 960, 127 S.Ct. at 2862. But the Court emphasized that it deliberately was not being more specific and cautioned that it was “not attempt[ing] to set down a rule governing all competency determinations.” Id. at 960–61, 127 S.Ct. at 2862. “[W]e find it difficult,” the Court confessed, “to amplify our conclusions or to make them more precise.” Id. at 961, 127 S.Ct. at 2863.

The bottom line of the Panetti decision is that there is not yet a well-defined bottom line in this area of the law. Instead of attempting to answer more specifically the question of what is required for a rational understanding of death by execution and the reason for it, the Supreme Court preferred to leave “a question of this complexity” to be addressed in a fuller manner and on a better record by the district court and the court of appeals in that case. Id. The decision not to decide more is, unfortunately, the last word from the Supreme Court on the “question of this complexity,” one variation of which is presented by the facts in our case.

The habeas petitioner in our case, John Ferguson, contends that under the Panetti decision he is mentally incompetent to be executed. As the facts come to us, Ferguson has a mental illness but he does understand that he is going to die by execution, and he understands that it is going to happen because he committed eight murders. Ferguson also believes, as tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of other people do, that there is life after death. Countless people also believe, as he does, that they are among God's chosen people. But Ferguson's religious belief is more grandiose than that because he believes that he is the Prince of God. The Florida courts rejected Ferguson's Panetti claim, and we must decide whether their decision to do so “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding” or was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). The key words being “clearly established law.” Or the lack of it.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Crimes

Part of the analysis of Ferguson's mental competency to be executed involves his understanding of the connection between his execution and the crimes for which he is going to be executed, which makes the nature of those crimes relevant.

1. The Carol City Murders

On the night of July 27, 1977, Ferguson, posing as a Florida Power and Light employee who needed to check some electrical outlets, persuaded Miss Margaret Wooden to let him enter her home. Ferguson v. State, 417 So.2d 639, 640, 643 (Fla.1982). After pretending to check the outlets in several rooms, Ferguson drew a gun on Wooden and bound and blindfolded her. Id. at 640. He then let two of his criminal cohorts into the house so that they could search it for drugs and valuables. Id. About two hours later the owner of the house and five of his friends arrived. Id. Wielding guns, Ferguson and his accomplices bound and blindfolded and searched the six men. Shortly thereafter, Wooden's boyfriend, Michael Miller, arrived. He, too, was bound and blindfolded and searched at gunpoint. Id. While six of the robbery victims were forced to kneel in the living room, Miller and Wooden were taken into her bedroom. Id. There they were put with their knees on the floor and their upper bodies lying across the bed. Id. at 641.

Then the killing began. Ferguson and his partners in crime methodically murdered five of the six men who were kneeling in the living room by shooting each one in the back of the head while his hands were tied behind him. Id. One of the six men somehow survived the shot to the back of his head, living to tell about the methodical murders of the other men in the living room. Id.

While Miller and Wooden were kneeling in the bedroom, Wooden heard the gunshots in the living room. Id. She saw her boyfriend shot to death beside her. Id. She saw a pillow coming toward her before she was shot in the head. Id. And she heard Ferguson running out of the bedroom after the shootings. Id. Despite her head wound, Wooden managed to make it to a neighbor's house. Id. When the police arrived at Wooden's house, they found six dead victims, all of whom had been shot in the back of the head while their hands were bound behind their backs, and they found the two intended murder victims who had been shot in that same manner but had somehow survived. Id.

2. The Hialeah Murders

Ferguson had two accomplices when he committed the six Carol City murders, but less than six months later he committed two more murders all by himself. Ferguson v. State, 417 So.2d 631, 633 (Fla.1982). On the evening of January 8, 1978, Brian Glenfeld and Belinda Worley, both of whom were seventeen years old, left a Youth for Christ meeting in Hialeah. Id. They were supposed to meet some friends at a local ice cream parlor, but they never arrived. Id. Apparently on the way to meeting their friends, the young couple pulled off the road. See id. at 636. What Ferguson did to the two teenagers when he chanced upon them was recounted by the trial court judge:

The facts reveal that the two victims were seated in an automobile and while seated therein a gunshot was fired through the window striking Brian Glenfeld in the arm and chest area. A significant amount of bleeding followed and this victim's blood was found throughout many areas of the front of the automobile as well as on the clothing of Belinda Worley. Following the shooting, the female victim ran many hundreds of feet from the car in an attempt to [elude] the defendant and was finally overtaken in some rather dense overgrowth and trees. She was subjected to many physical abuses by this defendant, including but not limited to, sexual penetration of her vagina and anus. The discovery of embedded dirt in her fingers, on her torso both front and back and in many areas within her mouth and the findings of hemorrhaging around her vagina and anal cavity would indicate that she put up a significant struggle and suffered substantially during the perpetration of these indignities upon her body. Expert testimony indicates that she was a virgin at the time of the occur[r]ence of this crime. The position of her body and the location of the wounds on her head would indicate that she was in a kneeling position at the time she was shot through the top of the head. She was left in a partially nude condition in the area where the crime was committed to be thereafter fed upon by insects and other predators. Physical evidence would substantiate that following the attack upon Belinda Worley the defendant went back to the car and shot Brian Glenfeld through the head.

Id. Ferguson stole cash from Brian Glenfeld's wallet. Id. at 633. Among the items he took from Belinda Worley, or her body, were two rings, a gold bracelet, and a pair of earrings. Id. When he ripped one of those earrings from Worley's ear, he tore her ear lobe. Id.

To murder the two young victims Ferguson used a .357 magnum pistol that had been stolen from a victim of the Carol City murders nearly six months earlier. Id. He confessed to killing the “two kids.” Id.

B. The Trials, Appeals, and Collateral Attacks

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....