The Florida Supreme Court recently reversed the Christopher Offord's death sentence based on his severe mental illness. Here's an excerpt from the opinion:
Offord's case is notable because it is one of the most documented cases of serious mental illness this Court has reviewed. Through the uncontradicted medical records, a picture emerges of an individual with two serious mental illnesses-schizophrenia and bipolar disorder-who has been in and out of institutions since he was just five or six years old. During a 2001 hospitalization in Texas, the staff considered Offord's prognosis poor and predicted that he would be unable to function well outside of a facility. This proved to be an accurate assessment because Offord was admitted to hospitals numerous times during 2002, 2003, and 2004. After coming to Florida, he was admitted to Bay Behavioral four times, the last on July 4, 2004, only weeks before the murder. In addition, Offord was receiving permanent social security disability payments because of his mental illness. Although Offord also has a substance abuse problem, his medical history indicates that his mental health significantly contributed to the murder.
As this Court observed over 34 years ago in Dixon:
It is necessary at the outset to bear in mind that all defendants who will face the issue of life imprisonment or death will already have been found guilty of a most serious crime, one which the Legislature has chosen to classify as capital. After his adjudication, this defendant is nevertheless provided with five steps between conviction and imposition of the death penalty-each step providing concrete safeguards beyond those of the trial system to protect him from death where a less harsh punishment might be sufficient.
The final step is the mandatory review by this Court, which we found was one indication of “legislative intent to extract the penalty of death for only the most aggravated, the most indefensible of crimes.” Id. at 8. For all the reasons we have explained, we conclude that this is not among “the most aggravated and unmitigated of most serious crimes” for which the death penalty is reserved. Id. at 7. Imposition of the death penalty would thus be a disproportionate punishment. We therefore vacate the death sentence and remand for the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Come on Washington--if our evolving standards of decency lag behind Florida, we've got some catch up to do.
