UPDATE: Middleton was exe­cut­ed on July 16, after the U.S. Court of Appeals lift­ed his stay. On July 15, a fed­er­al judge in Missouri stayed the exe­cu­tion of John Middleton, less than 24 hours before it was to occur. The judge was con­cerned that Middleton might be men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent, and hence inel­i­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion: ​“Middleton has pro­vid­ed evi­dence that he has been diag­nosed with a vari­ety of men­tal-health dis­or­ders and has received a num­ber of psy­chi­atric med­ica­tions over the years,” Judge Catherine Perry wrote in her order stay­ing the exe­cu­tion. “[Other] inmates indi­cate that he fre­quent­ly talks to peo­ple who are not there and tells sto­ries that could not have had any basis in real­i­ty.” Middleton’s attor­neys have also intro­duced new evi­dence to sup­port his claim of inno­cence. An expert wit­ness who sup­port­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s case at tri­al has now said the mur­der most like­ly took place when Middleton was in jail in anoth­er state. Kay Parish, an attor­ney for Middleton, said, ​“Part of the rea­son we don’t exe­cute peo­ple with men­tal deficits is that they have more dif­fi­cul­ty nav­i­gat­ing the sys­tem. And I think that’s very true in this case, and I think that’s why he had trou­ble in the past in get­ting lawyers or any­one to lis­ten to his claim of inno­cence or look at this evidence.”

Previous exe­cu­tions in Missouri this year were chal­lenged because of the state’s secre­cy sur­round­ing its lethal injec­tion process. One inmate, Russell Bucklew, received a stay because of a rare med­ical con­di­tion that affects his air­way and veins, poten­tial­ly lead­ing to an agonizing execution.

(C. McDaniel, ​“Citing Mental Health Concerns, Federal Judge Stays Missouri Execution,” St. Louis Public Radio, July 15, 2014). See Innocence and Mental Illness.

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