HUTCHINSON WARRANT: Evidentiary hearing in Bradford County & Florida Supreme Court opinion
Jeffrey Hutchinson’s execution is set for May 1. Today, the Florida Supreme Court denied his pending claims, and the Bradford County court held a hearing on his competency for execution.
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 I)
The basis for the claim that Hutchinson is insane for execution is Hutchinson’s long-standing delusion that the government (law enforcement, FBI, etc.) conspired against him and killed his family in an effort to silence him from sharing secrets he obtained while serving in the military during the Gulf War. Before the murders, he set up a 1-800 number for discussing the Gulf War and Gulf War Illness (GWI). Below is a flyer he made:
Hutchinson believes he was targeted by the government for doing so. He believes two masked men broke into his house and killed his family because he was advocating for veterans who had GWI.
Almost every witness that was called testified that Hutchinson told them this same delusion and that Hutchinson truly believed this delusion. Several witnesses also testified that Hutchinson was uncomfortable speaking on the phone due to his paranoia about the conspiracy.
Below is a summary of most of the evidence presented at the hearing. (I’ll finish in another post.)
Monica Jordan
Ms. Jordan is a mitigation specialist and investigator who’s worked on Hutchinson’s case. She testified that Hutchinson firmly believes the government is conspiring against him and killed his family as part of the conspiracy.
Stacy Biggart
Ms. Biggart is one of Hutchinson’s prior attorneys. She testified that Hutchinson’s delusions are firm and long-standing.
Dan Ashton & Nels Roderwald
Mr. Ashton and Mr. Roderwald are both investigators for Hutchinson’s federal defense attorneys at the Capital Habeas Unit (CHU). Mr. Ashton worked on Hutchinson’s case on and off for over 20 years. Both Mr. Ashton and Mr. Roderwald testified that Hutchinson’s delusion is very emphatic, firm, and long-standing. It did not change over the course of 20 years.
Throughout the 20 years that Mr. Ashton worked on his case, Hutchinson viewed anything that happened on his case—including a judge dying by suicide, a medical examiner getting into professional issues, and a court cutting off funding for investigation—as related to the conspiracy. Mr. Ashton also testified that Hutchinson filed numerous pro se fillings over the life of his case.
Prison Employees
Death Watch Sergeant
The current death watch Sergeant at Florida State Prison testified that he somewhat conversed with Hutchinson during his status checks, which are made every 30 minutes. Department of Corrections (DOC) attorneys asked him to testify yesterday but didn’t tell him why.
Officer Patrick Hare
Officer Hare has been employed at Union Correctional Institution (UCI) for about 11 years. He testified he’s never heard about the conspiracy. He was given less than an hour notice that he was to speak with the psychologists Monday.
Scotty Pleasant
Mr. Pleasant is an employee at Florida State Prison. He testified that when the death warrant was signed, Hutchinson mentioned that he had an appeal in progress. Mr. Pleasant also testified that Hutchinson “appeared” like he understood everything. Nothing “jumped off the page” about Hutchinson; he was “normal.”
Jeff Hazen
Mr. Hazen is an attorney who previously represented capital clients. He represented Hutchinson from 2004-2008. He reiterated Hutchinson’s belief in the conspiracy to which the other witnesses also testified. Mr. Hazen said that Hutchinson has knowledge about chemical weapons used in the war that he believed the government did not want him to share. Mr. Hazen testified that the delusion caused tension in their relationship because he thought it would be best to focus on mitigation rather than the conspiracy. Hutchinson would be “very unhappy” if efforts were spent on anything other than exoneration and finding the people he believed committed the crimes against him.
Terri Backhus
Ms. Backhus is an attorney who has represented capital defendants for decades. She testified that she’s represented several indigent defendants with mental illness, including delusions. She said a key to these circumstances is spending time with the client and talking to experts because it takes time for the client to trust you to tell you their delusions.
Ms. Backhus represented Hutchinson in 2015—the first case assigned to the CHU when it was created in 2015. She said the difficulty with Hutchinson’s case was that the clock for his federal habeas case was “blown” and that, as a result, Hutchinson never had a merits review on federal habeas review. She said: “We were never able to get into the merits because we were always fighting the procedural bars.”
Hutchinson said he could tell when she was coming into the prison because “he could see a red aura around [her].” He said he was able to tell things about people by the aura and colors around them.
Dr. Crown
Dr. Crown first evaluated Hutchinson in late 2024 to investigate his brain function as it related to his behavior. He met with him for about 3.5 hours at UCI. He was alone with Jeff in one of the consultation rooms.
He determined that Hutchinson sustained brain damage mixed with diagnosis of PTSD. Using an objective assessment of PTSD used by the military, Dr. Crown determined Hutchinson has moderate PTSD. Hutchinson also told Dr. Crown about his delusion. After testing, he did not find that Hutchinson was malingering. He said there was no evidence of malingering.
Dr. Crown said Hutchinson has a “well-honed” belief of the delusion and it’s an “encapsulated belief,” meaning Hutchinson appears “totally normal” other than the delusion. He also said that a person who has short interactions with Hutchinson may not recognize the delusion.
Note: Hutchinson’s appearance was indicated in the Commission’s report. The State also introduced the prison official’s testimony who had short interactions with Hutchinson.
He said: “It’s a psychosis. It’s a split from reality.” He also testified that this is a distinction from other prisoners who may say they’re innocent. Dr. Crown testified that Hutchinson does not believe he is incompetent but that everyone “is out to get” him.
Dr. Crown opined that Hutchinson’s delusion conflicts with his ability to understand the reason for the execution. He testified that Hutchinson knows he’s being executed but doesn’t rationally understand the reason why.
Dr. Agharkar
Note: The audio was off for a portion of this testimony.
Dr. Agharkar’s testimony was similar to Dr. Crown’s. He said that even though Hutchinson understands he’s being executed related to his conviction, he doesn’t understand any “causal connection” because he doesn’t believe he committed the crimes. He also said that Hutchinson’s belief is “steadfast[]” and that he stopped his attorneys from presenting an insanity defense at trial because he doesn’t believe he’s insane. Dr. Agharkar further testified that his DOC disciplinary record has nothing to do with the issues at this hearing. Ultimately, he opined that Hutchinson is not competent to be executed. He thinks this is a brain injury case that manifests delusions.
Dr. Werner
Dr. Werner was a member of the Commission appointed by Gov. DeSantis to examine Hutchinson. Her testimony was mostly consistent with what’s in the Commission’s report (covered yesterday). She testified that his parting words to the Commission were:
“I don’t want to die.”
She testified she’s been appointed 5-10 times by the Governor to serve on a Commission. She is paid a flat fee through her employer. Dr. Werner testified she’s found at least one defendant incompetent to be executed but could not recall their name.
Comment: Per research for a law review article on the process for determining competency for execution, which I co-wrote with Bridget Maloney and is forthcoming in the Law and Psychology Review, Dr. Werner has never found anyone incompetent for execution. The article can be downloaded here and says in pertinent part:
Even though Florida’s statute directs that review of the Governor’s determination is de novo, the same Governor-appointed experts serve as the State’s testifying experts when the case goes to litigation. Duane Owen’s case from 2023 illustrates this problem. In Owen’s case, two of the three governor-appointed experts, Dr. Wade Myers, M.D. and Dr. Tonia Werner, M.D., had been appointed by the governor of Florida in several prior cases to determine the prisoner’s competency for execution, including the other Florida cases discussed in this article. Not one time did either of them recommend determining the prisoner was incompetent. The third doctor, Dr. Emily Lazarou, M.D., had not previously been appointed to determine a prisoner’s competency for execution but was a mentee of Dr. Myers, who worked at a Florida prison and often testified for the State in other contexts.1
Dr. Werner further testified that the Commission did not conduct any testing when reviewing Hutchinson. Dr. Meyers wanted to conduct testing, but the warden did not allow him to bring his laptop in (which he has done in the past). They also did not look at any scans for Hutchinson.
Dr. Werner disagreed that someone with a delusion would be hesitant to share their delusions with others. She did agree it’s possible that Hutchinson’s delusions could’ve been more prevalent if they would’ve spent more time with him.
Florida Supreme Court Opinion
In an opinion released this morning, the Florida Supreme Court denied Hutchinson’s appeal of the circuit court’s denial of his fourth successive motion for postconviction relief and petition for writ of habeas corpus.
Justice Labarga dissented, writing in full:
I fully acknowledge the horrific facts of this death warrant case. Yet, as acknowledged by the majority, “the warrant period in this case was admittedly short and the record lengthy.” Majority op. at 11 (emphasis added).
Additionally, the recent procedural history of this case has been affected by the following: (1) Hutchinson’s third successive postconviction motion was still pending in the circuit court at the time that the death warrant was signed on March 31, 2025, and (2) on April 17, 2025, the Governor temporarily stayed Hutchinson’s execution so that Hutchinson could be evaluated for competency. At the time that the stay was entered, this Court was actively considering the merits of Hutchinson’s current postconviction appeal, habeas petition, and other motions. However, this Court was only notified of the stay days later, after the competency evaluation was completed and the stay lifted.
Given these circumstances, I cannot concur in the majority’s decision to permit this execution to proceed at this time, without ensuring a reasonable period for this Court to conduct a full review.
Because due process requires more, I dissent.
The decision can be downloaded from the Court’s website here.
TFDP Prior Coverage of the Hutchinson Warrant
(Emphasis added.) (Footnotes omitted.)
I am a now-retired capital defense attorney from New Orleans. I tried a number of death penalty cases in the public defenders' office there and had to deal with minimal support because the money was not available for a decent defense. After the AEDPA was enacted, it got even worse on appeal and I subscribe to this site because time has not been kind to capital defense. At least I did not have to deal with less-than-unanimous verdict issues (yet another obstacle to true justice). It appears to me that FL has joined AL, TX and LA in denigrating capital defense cases with little regard for issues that get passed off as "harmless error" or "too late". I would not be surprised to learn that Jeffrey does not win on this level, either. God, I hope I am not casting a hex...
So, is it at the point now where he only has this and the US supreme Court left?
Tbh, theh latest appeal makes zero sense. Wouldn't have to have known that he killed those 4 people? Like, he must be know himself what he's saying is a lie.