Florida Bars From Medical Practice Psychiatrist Who Repeatedly Testified that Severely Mentally Ill Death-Row Prisoners Were ​‘Malingering’

A con­tro­ver­sial psy­chi­a­trist who repeat­ed­ly tes­ti­fied that severe­ly men­tal­ly ill death-row pris­on­ers were fak­ing their symp­toms and were com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed has been barred from med­ical prac­tice in Florida.

On March 31, 2021, the Florida Department of Health issued an emer­gency restric­tion on the med­ical license of Alan J. Waldman, M.D. (pic­tured), pro­hibit­ing him from prac­tic­ing as a med­ical doc­tor until the impaired prac­ti­tion­er pro­gram for the state’s Board of Medicine pro­vides notice ​“that he is safe to return to the prac­tice of med­i­cine.” The Department also ini­ti­at­ed pro­ceed­ings ​“seek­ing for­mal dis­ci­pline of [Waldman’s license] to prac­tice as a med­ical doc­tor in the State of Florida.”

Waldman gained noto­ri­ety for his role in clear­ing the path for exe­cut­ing sev­er­al severe­ly men­tal­ly ill pris­on­ers in Florida and Texas. Florida gov­er­nors appoint­ed Waldman, whose web­site asserts that he is an expert in detect­ing ​“malin­ger­ing,” to com­mis­sions to eval­u­ate whether three death-row pris­on­ers with long his­to­ries of men­tal ill­ness were men­tal­ly com­pe­tent. Each time, he con­clud­ed that that the pris­on­ers were com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, and twice he said they were malin­ger­ing — that is, delib­er­ate­ly feign­ing or exag­ger­at­ing their illness. 

Early in his career, Waldman worked as a doc­tor in the Florida prison sys­tem. He quit his job in a state facil­i­ty in 1999 when the Department of Health report­ed­ly was con­sid­er­ing revok­ing his priv­i­leges. In late 2000, Waldman was arrest­ed for aggra­vat­ed assault in a road rage inci­dent after point­ing an AK-47 assault rifle at a teenage dri­ver who was try­ing to obtain insur­ance infor­ma­tion from him after she said he cut in front of her and hit the front of her car.

The recent order bar­ring Waldman’s prac­tice of med­i­cine says that through­out the 1990s, ​“Waldman suf­fered from mul­ti­ple med­ical con­di­tions that caused pain” and devel­oped an opi­oid addic­tion after being treat­ed with painkillers, includ­ing oxy­codone and hydrocodone. The order indi­cat­ed that Waldman had admit­ted that, while he was work­ing as a foren­sic neu­ropsy­chi­a­trist, he ​“would occa­sion­al­ly take nar­cot­ic med­ica­tion pri­or to tes­ti­fy­ing to avoid expe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms of with­draw­al while testifying.” 

Waldman is not believed to have dis­closed his addic­tion, self-med­ica­tion pri­or to tes­ti­mo­ny, or arrest to defense lawyers in the cas­es in which he testified.

The order, signed by State Surgeon General Scott A. Rivkees, said that Waldman suf­fers from mul­ti­ple drug-use dis­or­ders, has failed to engage in treat­ment rec­om­mend­ed by doc­tors, and has failed to vol­un­tar­i­ly with­draw from prac­tice. Finding that Waldman’s ​“con­tin­ued unre­strict­ed prac­tice as a med­ical doc­tor con­sti­tutes an imme­di­ate, seri­ous dan­ger to the health, safe­ty, or wel­fare of the cit­i­zens of the State of Florida,” Rivkees imme­di­ate­ly pro­hib­it­ed Waldman from medical practice.

Waldman’s Findings Against Death-Row Prisoners

In his most notable case, Waldman tes­ti­fied for Texas pros­e­cu­tors that Scott Panetti — a man with a long his­to­ry of para­noid delu­sions who attempt­ed to sub­poe­na Jesus while per­mit­ted to rep­re­sent him­self and wore a pur­ple cow­boy suit through­out his death penal­ty tri­al — was com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. Panetti had long been diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, delu­sions, audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions, and man­ic depres­sion and had been hos­pi­tal­ized for his men­tal ill­ness more than a dozen times. Waldman said Panetti was malin­ger­ing and exag­ger­at­ing his con­di­tion. He ​“is about as nor­mal as he wants to be at any giv­en time,” Waldman tes­ti­fied, assert­ing that Panetti’s ​“dra­mat­ic pre­sen­ta­tion” dur­ing inter­views ​“reflect[s] an indi­vid­ual naive to [schiz­o­phre­nia] except for what is seen in tele­vi­sion and movies.” The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned the find­ing that Panetti was com­pe­tent and, years lat­er, his case is still pending.

In two high-pro­file Florida cas­es, Waldman also found Thomas Provenzano and John Ferguson com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. Provenzano for years claimed he was ​“Jesus Christ” and yelled, ​“I am the son of God! You can’t kill me,” while he was being trans­port­ed to the hos­pi­tal after hav­ing been shot by a sher­iff. A 2014 arti­cle in Mother Jones quot­ed Provenzano’s sis­ter, Catherine Forbes as say­ing, ​“A five-year-old kid could tell my broth­er had men­tal prob­lems.” If her broth­er had been fak­ing his men­tal ill­ness, she rhetor­i­cal­ly asked, ​“would you sleep 17 years with a box on your head, or under your cot?”

Ferguson killed eight peo­ple after hav­ing been released from a state psy­chi­atric facil­i­ty over the objec­tions of state doc­tors. He had been com­mit­ted to the facil­i­ty for para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia and, at the time Waldman found him com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed, had a 40-year his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness. Ferguson insist­ed that he was ​“the Prince of God” and that upon his exe­cu­tion his body would rise from the grave and ​“come back to life” and he would ascend to be the sole per­son at ​“the right hand of God.” 

The com­mis­sion on which Waldman served spent less than 90 min­utes review­ing two file box­es of med­ical records and admin­is­tered no psy­cho­log­i­cal tests to Ferguson. As described in his lawyers’ brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, ​“Ferguson also report­ed to the Commission a long his­to­ry of oth­er delu­sions and hal­lu­ci­na­tions — includ­ing cur­rent delu­sions and hal­lu­ci­na­tions. Among them, Ferguson explained that he heard God whis­per to him through his set of ​‘inner ears’ plans for ful­fill­ing his des­tiny as the Prince of God and explain­ing his divine pow­ers; that he com­mu­ni­cat­ed with his long-dead father who has vowed to pro­tect him from any death or harm; that he believes the State lacks the pow­er to kill him; that he sees ​‘shad­ow peo­ple’ who watch him; and that he is con­vinced there are com­mu­nist plots that he will ​‘dri­ve away’ after he assumes the seat at the Right Hand of God.”

More recent­ly, in July 2018, Waldman tes­ti­fied in the Orange County, Florida death penal­ty tri­al of Darrell Avant, Sr. that Avant was fak­ing symp­toms of brain injury in an effort to avoid being sen­tenced to death. The jury in that case sen­tenced Avant to life.

Florida’s Bill to Prohibit the Death Penalty for Those with Severe Mental Illness

The exe­cu­tions of Provenzano and Ferguson pro­vid­ed the impe­tus for pub­lic defend­ers to seek a statute in Florida to end the death penal­ty for indi­vid­u­als who are severe­ly men­tal­ly ill. Senate Bill 1156, spon­sored by St. Petersburg State Senator Jeff Brandes, would pro­hib­it pros­e­cu­tors from seek­ing the death penal­ty against defen­dants who suf­fered from severe men­tal ill­ness­es at the time of the offense.

“I was shocked we didn’t already have this in law,” Brandes said.

The bill, which is backed by Florida men­tal health advo­cates, passed the Senate Criminal Justice Committee by a vote of 8 – 0 on March 30, 2021, but, as the 2021 leg­isla­tive ses­sion clos­es, has no spon­sor in the House. Brandes told the Tampa Bay Times that he intends to rein­tro­duce the bill next session.