Owen Warrant Update: Owen's counsel files motion in Bradford County 5 hours ahead of hearing.
The Motion was filed at 8:35 this morning—five hours before the court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Motion, per the case management conference last week.
Owen’s execution is currently set for June 15, 2023. Litigation remains pending in the Florida Supreme Court and Bradford County trial court.
I usually don’t track warrant litigation this closely, but Owen’s case is significant for a number of reasons. Most significantly, this is the first time this process of determining a prisoner’s competency for execution has been used since 2013. (Background on the Rule 3.811 process and the last two times it was used is available here.)
Defense Motion
As promised last week, the defense filed its Motion seeking the Bradford County trial court’s review of Gov. DeSantis’s determination that Owen is competent for execution this morning before 9:00. (Background on the Rule 3.811 process at play in these proceedings is available here.)
The Motion was filed at 8:35 this morning—five hours before the court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Motion, per the case management conference last week. (The transcript from the case management conference is summarized here.)
NOTE: Gov. DeSantis lifted the stay on May 25, 2023. This means that Owen’s counsel prepared this Motion in four business days (not counting Memorial Day). In that time, they also (1) attended a case management conference on May 26, and (2) filed a Reply Brief at the Florida Supreme Court.
Attached to the State’s Motion is an appendix that includes: (A) Dr. Eisenstein’s May 16, 2023 Report, (B) Dr. Eisenstein’s Supplemental Report dated May 31, 2023, (C) Sentencing Order from 1999,1 and (D) an unsworn affidavit of Dr. Faye Sultan.2
Dr. Eisenstein’s Supplemental Report
Dr. Eisenstein’s supplemental report indicates that he spent 7.25 hours with Owen on Tuesday, May 30.
NOTE: This was not Dr. Eisenstein’s first time seeing Owen. He previously saw Owen on May 15, 2023, for six hours. The Governor’s Commission spent 100 minutes with Owen before issuing its report.
Dr. Eisenstein performed several tests on Owen, which he reports produced results consistent with “insidious dementia.”
Other testing also was consistent with “a schizophrenic process or thought disorder, with major distortions of reality.”
Per Dr. Eisenstein’s supplemental report, Owen’s delusions remain consistent:
Dr. Eisenstein concluded that Owen “meets the criteria for insanity” and “does not have a rational understanding of the reason for his death sentence and scheduled execution.”
Dr. Sultan’s Affidavit
Dr. Sultan’s Affidavit is dated May 26—the same day as the case management conference. The Affidavit says she first became involved in Owen’s case in 1994. She testified at Owen’s trial for the Slattery murder in 1999. Since first being contacted by Owen’s defense team, she has spent “20 hours in direct contact” with Owen “and an additional approximately 30 hours reviewing materials pertaining to him and his case.”
She says that in all her time examining Owen, she “noticed no indication of malingering,” and there were no indications “of malingering in any of the testing” she conducted.
Further, she says that Owen “functions as a young adolescent.” She recounts the same “severe, fixed delusions” as Dr. Eisenstein and says he has “consistently maintained” the delusions since she first met him in 1994.
Here’s her conclusion:
Prior Information on Owen’s case
The background of Owen’s case can be found here.
Background on the Rule 3.811 process is available here.
The Governor’s determination after the Commission’s report is available here.
The four-part series on the history of Owen’s mental illness can be found here:
The transcript from the Bradford County’s case management conference on May 26 is summarized here.
An update on the pending litigation as of May 31, 2023, is here.
My thoughts are with everyone involved in the warrant and execution process.
This Sentencing Order is discussed in length in the four-part series referenced above related to the history of Owen’s mental illness.