Florida Court refuses to stay execution for mentally ill veteran

A recent article has reported that Mr Jeffrey Hutchinson was executed in Florida in early May 2025, despite having a history of longstanding mental illness, where his lawyer’s claim that Mr Hutchinson was mentally incompetent.

Mr Hutchinson’s legal team sought a stay of his scheduled execution and requested an evidentiary hearing to assess his competency. However, Mr Hutchinson’s execution was carried out after the U.S Supreme Court rejected a final appeal without comment.

The Death Penalty Information Center reported that Mr Hutchinson suffered from a delusional disorder for decades, with a per­sis­tent delu­sion that his exe­cu­tion is meant to silence his expo­sure of gov­ern­ment secrets, includ­ing the iden­ti­ty of the actu­al per­pe­tra­tors in his case. Experts who eval­u­at­ed him in ear­ly April 2025 deter­mined he lacks a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of Florida’s plan to exe­cute him, ren­der­ing him incom­pe­tent for exe­cu­tion.

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