John Errol Ferguson v. State of Florida

Summary

The court affirmed the circuit court's finding that Ferguson was competent to be executed because competent, substantial evidence showed that, despite paranoid schizophrenia and genuine delusions, he rationally understood that he would be executed for his murders and would physically die. The court also rejected Ferguson's procedural due process claims concerning notice of the State's theory, cross-examination, and the absence of a witness. The court treated the governing federal precedent as requiring rational understanding in this context but not as displacing Florida's established standard.