HUTCHINSON WARRANT: Bradford County hearing (Part II) & denial
Hutchinson’s execution is scheduled for Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Late last night, the circuit court entered a Final Order denying Hutchinson’s insanity claim.
Jeffrey Hutchinson’s execution is scheduled for Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Late last night, the circuit court entered a Final Order denying Hutchinson’s insanity claim and determining Hutchinson is competent to be executed.
Bradford County Hearing (Part I)
On Friday, I covered the first part of the evidentiary hearing in Bradford County on Hutchinson’s claim of insanity. You can find that at the link below:
HUTCHINSON WARRANT: Evidentiary hearing in Bradford County & Florida Supreme Court opinion
Jeffrey Hutchinson’s execution is set for May 1 at 6:00 p.m. Today, the Bradford County circuit court held an evidentiary hearing on claims related to Hutchinson’s competency for execution. Also today, the Florida Supreme Court issued an opinion denying his pending claims.
Bradford County Hearing (Part II)
Here’s the rest of the hearing.
Dr. Tonia Werner
In Part I (above), I left off with Dr. Werner’s testimony. Later in her testimony, Dr. Werner testified that the Commission did not include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in its report because they did not have “enough information” to include it. She said it’s possible it would’ve been included if the Commission had more information.
Dr. Werner further testified that the Commission did not “find cognitive deficits in [their] interview with him at all.”
She later clarified her testimony about previously finding a defendant incompetent to be executed (discussed in Part I) and stated it was not while she was on the Governor’s Commission but, instead, when working for the defense.
Dr. Wade Myers
Dr. Myers testified via Zoom (as he did for Duane Owen’s case in 2023). He was also a member of the Governor’s Commission. He testified he’s been appointed to a Commission by the Governor approximately 10 times. When asked whether Hutchinson discussed his delusions with the Commission, Dr. Myers said it was his “alibi”:
Dr. Myers testified that he “saw no evidence that [Hutchinson] ever has had a delusion,” explaining:
And for me to somehow try to fit the facts to him having a delusion, I'd have to disregard his entire life prior to that, the fact that he said that he was having a good life and everything was going great and he and his girlfriend were doing wonderfully and he loved the kids. And then within, I guess, minutes of waking up and after he called 911, he suddenly develops a delusion that masked intruders broke into the house. So the delusion would have to come on exactly at the time of the murder, which I suppose the odds of that are probably one in a billion.
Dr. Myers explained the difference between a delusion and an alibi as follows:
The Commission determined that Hutchinson is not “suffering from any mental illness, per se, at all.” As to PTSD, Dr. Myers testified that Hutchinson had PTSD symptoms early on but “like most cases,” they “improve[d] over time.” Dr. Myers testified that he was “puzzled” by the other expert testimony that Hutchinson is not competent to be executed.
Dr. Myers testified he’s being paid $400/hour by the State for his work on this case. He also testified that Dr. Lazarou (the third member of the Governor’s Commission) trained with Dr. Myers as a Fellow.
Dr. Myers also testified that GWI remains controversial:
He advocated very strongly for Gulf War Syndrome, and he tried to get compensation for it, which wasn't going well. It was a controversial diagnosis at the time. It still is controversial as to whether it causes any permanent effects. The literature is sort of still undecided on that. So I think that, again, he was probably feeling he was not being dealt with fairly in terms of his wanting to be compensated for Gulf War Syndrome.
Dawn Macraedy
Ms. Macraedy is an attorney with Capital Collateral Regional Counsel North. She attended the Commission’s competency evaluation of Hutchinson on April 21. She asked for it to be videotaped, and the prison denied it. She said Hutchinson “thought he was there to discuss blast overpressure and Gulf War Illness.” The Commission did not conduct any tests.
The full transcript from the evidentiary hearing can be downloaded here.
Circuit Court Denies Insanity Claim
Late last night, the circuit court entered a Final Order denying Hutchinson’s insanity claim and determining Hutchinson is competent to be executed.
In the Order, the court concluded that Hutchinson did not meet “his burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that he is presently insane or incompetent to be executed.” The court further determined that Hutchinson had not proved his claim by “preponderance of the evidence.”
The full Order can be downloaded here.
Comment from Counsel
“Jeffrey Hutchinson, a Gulf War veteran, has a decades-long delusion that he is being executed to silence his efforts to expose government secrets. Two experts have concluded that he is not competent for execution. Based on these facts, we believe the court was wrong to find Mr. Hutchinson competent to be executed, but we are not surprised. These proceedings have been a far cry from a full and fair hearing as required by due process. We will continue to litigate the issue and seek a stay of Mr. Hutchinson’s execution.”
-Counsel for Jeffrey Hutchinson
-April 28, 2025
Petitions Headed to SCOTUS
Hutchinson has four claims that can now be filed for review at the U.S. Supreme Court. Nothing is showing on the docket as of this morning.
TFDP Prior Coverage of the Hutchinson Warrant
My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant- and execution-related process.
*If you reference or share information from Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty, please credit and link back to the original post. Thank you for reading.*