If Owen is executed it will be the fourth execution of the year.
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Lawyers for death row inmate Duane Owen appealed to the US Supreme Court to stay his executionscheduled for June 15 in Florida, because suffers from severe mental disordersan argument already rejected in the southern state.
“Florida has little interest in seeing that sentences are carried out fairly and efficiently, but Owen, whose delusions and insanity prevent him from rationally understanding the consequences of his execution, has a right to make it conform to the Constitution,” the defense attorneys say in the appeal, as reported by the Florida Phoenix outlet on Tuesday.
“This right includes the ability to have meaningful judicial review of the complex constitutional claims that it has timely raised,” they add.
Seven Florida Supreme Court justices previously voted against staying Owen’s execution and one, Jorge Labarga, recused himself and did not vote for unknown reasons.
The lawyers allege that Owen suffers from serious mental problems that legally prevent him from being subjected to the death penalty.
All of her requests, including one for some imaging tests to determine the state of your brainwere denied by the Florida Supreme Court.
Before that unsuccessful appeal to the Florida high court, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis agreed to temporarily suspend the execution order so that Owen could undergo a psychiatric examination.
Psychiatrists Wade Myers, Tonia Werner, and Emily Lazarou concluded that Owen “has the mental capacity to understand the death penalty and the reasons why it was imposed”DeSantis said when he lifted the stay of execution on May 24, which was rescheduled for June 15.
However, a neuropsychologist consulted by the defense ruled that his illness is real, not feigned.
owen was convicted of the murders of Karen Slattery, a 14-year-old student, and Georgianna Worden, a mother of twotwo separate acts that occurred in Palm Beach County in 1984 and which he confessed to committing when he was arrested that same year.
His lawyers cited in the appeal to the Florida Supreme Court “brain damage and insanity” and “denial of due process,” among other reasons for staying the execution.
If Owen is executed It will be the fourth execution of the year and the 103rd since capital punishment was reinstated in Florida in 1976.
There are currently nearly 300 inmates on the state’s “death row,” as the place where those to be executed are known, according to data from the Florida Department of Corrections (Prisons).
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) petitioned Governor DeSantis on May 31 to stay Owen’s execution and commute his sentence to life without parole.
“Taking the life of Mr. Owen will not restore the lives of the victims. Intentionally ending his life will only perpetuate violence in a society immersed in it, ”says the bishops’ letter.
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