Executing the Mentally Ill: The Criminal Justice System and the Case of Alvin Ford

217 Pages·1993·11.68 MB·English

by  Kent Miller

32MPTAILY (cid:10)
ILL (cid:10)
For Richard H. Burr (cid:10)
The [people] who made the world wiser, (cid:10)
better and holier were ever battling (cid:10)
with the law and customs and institutions (cid:10)
of the world (cid:10)
—Clarence Darrow
THE C R I M I N AL
JUSTICE SYSTEM
AND THE CASE OF
ALV IN FORD
KENT S. MILLER
M I C H A EL L. RADELET
SAGE Publications
International Educational and Professional Publisher
Newbury Park London New Delhi
Copyright © 1993 by Sage Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
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For information address:
SAGE Publications, Inc. (cid:10)
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publlcation Data
Miller, Kent S.
Executing the mentally ill : the criminal justice system and the
case of Alvin Ford / Kent S. Miller, Michael L. Radelet.
p. cm. (cid:10)
Includes bibliographical references and index. (cid:10)
ISBN 0-8039-5149-3 (cl.). - ISBN 0-8039-5150-7 (pb) (cid:10)
1. Ford, Alvin Bernard, d. 1991-Trials, litigation, etc.
2. Trials (Murder)-Florida. 3. Capital punishment-United States.
4. Insanity-Jurisprudence-United States. 5. Death row inmates-
Mental health-United States. I. Radelet, Michael L. II. Title.
KF224.F665M55 1993
364.6'6'092-dc20
[B] 93-999
93 94 95 96 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sage Production Editor: Judith L. Hunter
Contents (cid:10)
Acknowledgments vii (cid:10)
Preface ix (cid:10)
1. (cid:9) Drawing the Lines: Who Lives and Who Dies? 1 (cid:10)
2.(cid:9) An Introduction to Alvin Ford 11 (cid:10)
3.(cid:9) Family Background, the Crime, and Trial: (cid:10)
1953-1974 21 (cid:10)
4.(cid:9) Anticipating and Enduring (cid:10)
the First Death Warrant: 1975-1981 41 (cid:10)
5.(cid:9) Psychological Deterioration and (cid:10)
the Road to the Supreme Court: 1982-1986 59 (cid:10)
6.(cid:9) Physicians, Mental Health Professionals, (cid:10)
and the Death Penalty 90 (cid:10)
7.(cid:9) Alvin Ford and the Courts: (cid:10)
Additional Issues 119 (cid:10)
8.(cid:9) Competence for Execution: (cid:10)
The Supreme Court Speaks 136 (cid:10)
9.(cid:9) Back to Federal Court: (cid:10)
The 1988 Hearing and Beyond 146 (cid:10)
10. The Cure That Kills 162 (cid:10)
Appendix 183 (cid:10)
References 185 (cid:10)
Index 195 (cid:10)
About the Authors 199 (cid:10)
Acknowledgments (cid:10)
This book would not have been possible without the assistance
of several people who played critical roles in Alvin Ford's life. In
particular, we are indebted to his attorneys, Robert Adams, Rich-
ard H. Burr, Deborah Fins, and Laurin Wollan; to his mother,
Connie Ford; to his sister, Gwendolyn; and to Gail Rowland, who
worked on the case as a paralegal and became one of Mr. Ford's
closest friends. Larry Spalding, director of Florida's Office of
Capital Collateral Representative, gave us access to his files; and
his staff, especially Faith Blake, Terry Farley, and Steve Walter,
were very helpful. As with several other research projects in
which we have been involved, we thank Watt Espy for his assis-
tance and unparalleled knowledge of the history of the death
penalty in the United States.
Valuable comments on previous drafts of this manuscript were
made by Richard H. Burr, Susan Cary, Kellogg W. Hunt, Betty Davis
Miller, Lisa Radelet, Windsor Schmidt, Jill Theg, Neil Walker, Laurin
Wollan, and three anonymous reviewers retained by Sage Publica-
tions and later identified to us as Kirk Heilbrun, James W. Marquart,
and Robert Bohm. We are especially indebted to Hugo Adam
Bedau, Scharlette Holdman, and Constance E. Putnam for their
vii
viii EXECUTING THE MENTALLY ILL
extensive comments. We also thank our colleagues George Bar-
nard and Kirk Heilbrun, whose work with us helped shape many
of the observations made in the following pages.
Professor Radelet's work on this monograph was supported in
part by a postdoctoral research fellowship under NIMH Grant T32
MH15l6l, administered through the Family Research Laboratory,
University of New Hampshire. An earlier draft of portions of
Chapter 9 first appeared in Behavioral Sciences & the Law,
Summer 1992, and is reprinted by permission of John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.
KENT S. MILLER
MICHAEL L. RADELET
Tallahassee and Gainesville
March 15, 1993
Preface (cid:10)
Unlike every other western democracy in the world, the United
States has made it clear that capital punishment will remain an
active part of its criminal justice system. By the end of 1992, there
were some 2,700 men and 43 women living under sentence of
death in the United States.1 These inmates, all of whom were
convicted of murder, were living in 34 states, with Texas, Florida,
and California each housing death rows of more than 300. The
sheer numbers of condemned inmates, coupled with political
pressure for executions and a judiciary that is growing increas-
ingly tired of death penalty appeals, indicate that America may
soon see executions at rates not seen before in this century.
Since 1900 there have been 7,000 executions in America, with
just slightly more than 4,000 since 1930. All nonmandatory death
penalty statutes in the United States were ruled unconstitutional
by the U.S. Supreme Court in Furtnan v. Georgia in 1972.2 Led
by Florida, states began to rewrite their laws. In 1976 the Supreme
Court, while invalidating statutes that provided for a mandatory
death penalty for certain types of crimes, approved other stat-
utes that specified aggravating and mitigating circumstances de-
signed to guide jurors and judges in deciding which convicted
ix